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 »

Austin Hedges is Cleveland’s primary catcher because of his defensive value. That’s no secret: The 32-year-old backstop has long been a well below-average hitter — his career wRC+ is a woeful 54 — but when it comes to working with a pitching staff, few do it better. Under his and backup Luke Maile’s guidance, the Guardians rank third in the American League in pitcher WAR and fourth in ERA. It’s fair to say that pitching is the postseason-bound club’s greatest strength.

Hedges fielded questions about his time behind the plate in Cleveland prior to a recent game.

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David Laurila: Who has been the easiest guy on the team to catch, the pitcher for whom you’re kind of just sitting back there on a rocking chair?

Austin Hedges: “Our whole team does a really nice job of staying consistent with all of their pitches, which has made my job really easy. One of the guys in the bullpen that is surprisingly easy to work with — a pitcher with really good stuff — is Enyel De Los Santos. He doesn’t get the credit that a lot of the big dogs in our bullpen do, but he’s been a workhorse for us. He’s gotten big outs in leverage situations. He’s so consistent with all of his pitches that I always know what I’m going to get.” Read the rest of this entry »

Cal Quantrill epitomizes the term “pitcher.” Twenty-seven years old and in his fourth big-league season, the Cleveland Guardians right-hander not only attacks hitters with a multi-pitch arsenal, he does so with a combination of aggressiveness and guile. Mixing and matching with aplomb, he’s won 23 of 32 decisions and logged a 3.16 ERA in 336 innings over the past two seasons. As my colleague Michael Baumann pointed out just last month, Quantrill isn’t overpowering, but he gets the job done.

Drafted eighth overall in 2016 by the San Diego Padres out of Stanford University, Quantrill was acquired by Cleveland at the 2020 trade deadline as part of the nine-player Mike Clevinger deal. He’s expected to start against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday if their Wild Card Series requires a deciding Game 3.

Quantrill discussed his evolution as a pitcher and his it’s-all-about-getting-outs approach this past weekend.

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David Laurila: We discussed your repertoire in spring training of 2018 when you were in the Padres system. How have you changed as a pitcher since that time?

Cal Quantrill: “If we’re looking at it from a literal standpoint, I flattened out the slider and turned it into a cutter. I went to more of a 50/50 mix with the two-seam and four-seam. I’ve kind of kept a little curveball wrinkle to keep them off the hard stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

Bo Naylor made his MLB debut with the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday, and if all goes according to plan, he’ll be a mainstay in their lineup as soon as next year. His tool box and present performance are equally eye-catching. The 22-year-old Mississauga, Ontario native logged a 140 wRC+ between Double-A Akron and Triple-A Columbus, and a pair of counting stats were even more notable. Displaying unique athleticism for a backstop, Naylor swatted 21 home runs and swiped 20 bases in 24 attempts.

His emergence as Cleveland’s catcher of the future came on the heels of a confounding 2021 campaign. Returning to action following a minor-league season lost to COVID, the 2018 first-round pick struggled to the tune of a .612 OPS in Akron last year. A flaw in his left-handed stroke was the primary reason for concern. As Eric Longenhagen wrote last spring, Naylor’s swing “can really only cut through the heart of the zone.”

This past Sunday, I asked the younger brother of Guardians first baseman Josh Naylor if he felt that our lead prospect analyst’s assessment was valid. Read the rest of this entry »

Riley Greene was 18 years old and only three months removed from being drafted fifth-overall when he was first featured here at FanGraphs in September 2019. Harking back to our earlier conversation, I asked the Detroit Tigers rookie outfielder what he knows now that he didn’t know then.

“When I first started, I didn’t really think about much,”replied Greene, who celebrated his 22nd birthday four days ago. “I kind of just went up there, and was free-swinging almost. I was a young kid who didn’t really know anything. Since then, I’ve come up with a routine and am more educated on what I need to do at the plate. I have a plan. Whether it works or not is up the baseball gods.”

The extent to which the baseball gods have been on his side is relative. Greene isn’t exactly setting the world on fire — he has a 100 wRC+ and five home runs in 400 plate appearances — but again, he’s been old enough to take a legal drink for barely over a year. He also came into the season with just 198 professional games under his belt, only 55 at the Triple-A level. His potential far exceeds his present.

In some respects, Greene is much the same player Detroit drafted in the first round out of Oviedo, Florida’s Paul J. Hagerty High School. Read the rest of this entry »

On September 1, one day after baseball’s no. 5 overall prospect made his major league debut, Dan Szymborski wrote that the Baltimore Orioles “showed mercy to minor league pitchers … officially calling up infielder Gunnar Henderson.” As my colleague pointed out, the 21-year-old left-handed hitter had slashed .297/.416/.531 with 19 home runs over 112 games between Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk. His wRC+ was a healthy 154.

Henderson has continued to impress at the big-league level. In 110 plate appearances with the O’s, the young slugger has punished pitchers to the tune of a 139 wRC+, with 12 of his 27 hits going for extra bases. He’s left the yard four times, with the latest of those blasts leaving his bat at 111.1 mph and traveling 428 feet into Fenway Park’s center field bleachers.

Henderson sat down to talk hitting on Tuesday, one day before he was named Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with your evolution as a hitter. What do you know now that you didn’t when you were drafted by the Orioles [42nd overall in 2019 out of Selma, Alabama’s John T. Morgan Academy]?

Gunnar Henderson: “I would say that it’s the number of good pitches you get to hit. In high school, you’ll get multiple pitches to hit within an at-bat, and then as you progress, at each and every level, it’s less and less. Especially here in the big leagues. You really have to take your walks and not give in to what the pitcher wants you to do. You’ve got to hunt for that one pitch, because you might only get one, maybe two, a game.”

Laurila: How do you go about doing that? Read the rest of this entry »

Nick Frasso has a high-octane heater and an intriguing ceiling. Acquired by the Los Angeles Dodgers from the Toronto Blue Jays at this summer’s trade deadline, the 23-year-old right-hander was described by Eric Longenhagen prior to the season as “an uncommon sort of prospect,” a projectable hurler who’d had a velocity spike before undergoing Tommy John surgery shortly after being selected 106th overall in the 2020 draft.

Loyola Marymount University product has only elevated his profile since returning to the mound in mid-May. Featuring a fastball with more juice than the one he displayed pre-injury, he logged a 1.83 ERA with 76 strikeouts and just 33 hits allowed in 54 innings. Moreover, he did so while climbing from Low-A to Double-A in three months time.

Frasso — No. 20 on our Dodgers prospect rankings, with a 40+ FV — sat down to discuss his repertoire, and recent change of scenery, following an August outing with the High-A Great Lakes Loons.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with your early-career development. What do you know now that you didn’t when you signed your first professional contract?

Nick Frasso: “My last year in college is when we finally got a TrackMan at our school and as that was the COVID year, I didn’t even get to use it a ton. It wasn’t until I jumped into pro ball that I really got access to all the analytical stuff — the metrics that allowed me to see what my pitches do, what works better in certain situations, and stuff like that. I’ve kind of gone from there.”

Laurila: I was at last night’s [August 16] game and saw you hit triple digits a couple of times. How does your fastball profile outside of the velocity? Read the rest of this entry »

Niko Kavadas climbed multiple levels in his first full professional season. Moreover, he was one of the best hitters in the minors. Drafted in the 11th round last year by the Boston Red Sox out of the University of Notre Dame, the 6-foot-1, 230-pound first baseman slashed .280/.442/.547 with 26 home runs, those numbers coming between Low-A Salem, High-A Greenville, and Double-A Portland. His 170 wRC+ ranked third highest among MLB farmhands who logged at least 300 plate appearances.

I recently asked Portland Sea Dogs development coach Katie Krall what makes Boston’s 2022 Minor League Player of the Year as good as he is.

“Niko understands his thumbprint as a hitter,” she said of Kavadas, who came to the plate 515 times and augmented his 110 hits with 102 walks. “He knows where he does damage. He’s got a disciplined approach in terms of the types of pitches he’s looking to hit and doesn’t chase a lot. If you look at his heat map, he does most of his damage belt to below, so a message we’ve tried to hammer home with him is to focus on that. He’s really bought into it. Even here in Double-A, where he hasn’t had the same results that he did in Greenville, the underlying processes are trending in the right direction.”

Red Sox director of player development Brian Abraham offered a similar assessment. Citing Kavadas’ combination of power and plate discipline, he expressed that the left-handed hitter is unique in that he “almost has a contact approach that produces power.” Read the rest of this entry »

Back in the 1950s, Hall of Fame slugger Ralph Kiner famously said that “singles hitters drive Fords and home run hitters drive Cadillacs.” Michael Massey’s grandmother may or may not have been familiar with the quote, but she did her best to send the 24-year-old Kansas City Royals rookie down the right road. I learned as much when I asked Massey about his first big-league blast, which came on August 18 against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field.

“What I thought of when I hit it was my nana,” said Massey, who grew up in the Chicago area and went on to play his college ball at the University of Illinois. “She passed away toward the end of last season — she was 93 — and growing up she’d always give me a hundred bucks for every home run I hit. She loved it when I hit home runs, and did that for every league I played in.”

Massey has never tallied up his earnings from over the years, although he does acknowledge that the benevolence was bountiful. Along with his homers in youth leagues, high school, and college, he left the yard 21 times in High-A last year.

His grandmother — his mother’s mother — escaped Illinois winters by vacationing in Florida, and eventually became a snowbird. That the Sunshine State became her “favorite place in the world” made Massey’s first MLB home run even more special. And the memories include much more than money. The family matriarch regularly played whiffle ball with him when he was growing up, and she wasn’t just a fan of her grandson. She loved baseball. Read the rest of this entry »