Positional versatility has become increasingly important now that teams are carrying 13 or 14 pitchers on their rosters. That leaves benches bereft of depth, meaning that an ability to move around the diamond makes a player especially valuable — if not essential. One-dimensional non-regulars are marginal assets unless they excel in a specific area.

In the opinion of A.J. Hinch, the term “utility player” is anything but a pejorative. Moreover, everyday players who display versatility make a manager’s job easier.

“I don’t want “utility” to be explained as a negative thing,” the Tigers’ skipper told reporters recently. “A utility player has traditionally been defined as a guy who can’t play every day. And that’s not true. Some guys it is, some guys it isn’t. I caution everybody that it’s not a slight.

“When you have an everyday guy that is elite at that position, absolutely, you’re going to leave him at that position,” continued Hinch, who circled back to his Astros days and cited Alex Bregman having played short when Carlos Correa was hurt. “That’s a multiple position for an elite player.”

Hinch’s Detroit team clearly lacks the top-end talent that he had at his disposal during his Houston tenure, which suggests mixing-and-matching might be common in Motown this summer. If spring training is any indication, it might even be the M.O. Hinch has done no shortage of shuffling, and come the regular season, the likes of Jeimer Candelario, Niko Goodrum, Jonathan Schoop, and Harold Castro will be utilized as moving pieces in hopes of optimizing the lineup. Ditto Isaac Paredes, once he’s called up from the alternate site. Read the rest of this entry »

The Detroit Tigers have a number of promising young pitchers, as well as a handful of veteran arms who retain upside. The bulk of them will have to thrive if the club hopes to compete in the AL Central anytime soon. But while there’s little doubt that Detroit’s rebuild is moving steadily in the right direction, the franchise’s fortunes will largely be determined by how soon and to what extent the pitching staff blossoms. Now under the watchful eye of Chris Fetter, Tigers pitchers head into the 2021 season with a plethora of potential, but also no shortage of question marks.

Here are conversational snapshots from, and about, six Detroit hurlers.

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Tyler Alexander has the most-varied mix on the Tigers’ staff. The 26-year-old left-hander has five pitches in his arsenal, and last season he threw each of them between 103 and 140 times (per Statcast). His second-most-frequent offering was a slider that yielded middling-at-best results. Despite an improved movement profile and a 31% whiff rate, opposing hitters logged a .333 batting average and a .606 slugging percentage when they put the pitch in play.

I mentioned that lack of success to Alexander, pointing out that he got, on average, nine more inches of drop, and slightly more horizontal, compared to the previous year. Why the lack of results?

“Well, I throw good sliders and I throw bad sliders,” was his reasoned response. “And I would assume the bad ones got hit. You know, I’ve worked a lot on that pitch. I’ve worked really hard on on finding the consistency with it. For instance, I thought I was really good yesterday. The outing before that, I thought it was terrible. It’s a feel pitch for me, and I’m slowly starting to get there. I’ve had issues getting it down in the zone; I’ve had issues getting it backdoor. In every interview I’ve ever had, I’ve said, ‘I’m working on my slider, I’m working on my slider.’ I’m always going to be working on it. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad.” Read the rest of this entry »

I asked Baltimore Orioles hitting coach Don Long a question on Monday morning, and he responded with a lengthy answer. I wanted to know, relative to years past, how much more frequently players are approaching him with ideas of changing their swing, and what he tends to tell them when that happens.

“Honestly, I’m not a believer in changing swings,” the veteran hitting instructor responded. “I operate under the thought that [for] every hitter, their best swing, they already possess. The thing that gets in the way of them being able to access their best swing, consistently, usually has to do with their thinking, their timing, their position, or their ability to be really good with their eyes.

“You’ve probably heard the old Michelangelo story, right? Supposedly, he carved this statue of David out of this block of granite, and they said, ‘How did you carve such a beautiful statue out of a block of stone?’ He said, ‘I simply chipped away at the stone until the statue revealed itself.’ That’s how I look at a hitter’s swing. You already possess your best swing — it’s already there — so let’s not spend time chasing a good swing, or chasing something that you already know how to do. Let’s chip away at the thing that’s getting in the way of that. And for most guys, the thing that interrupts the physical part of their game is the mental part of the game.

“I can give you an example. I had a guy come to me a couple days ago in the cage with an exasperated, ‘Man, what’s going on? I don’t know what to do.’ I said, ‘Let me ask you a question.’ I picked a ball up out of the basket and said, ‘What’s this pitch going to be?’ He looked at me and said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you do.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Ethan Small’s success comes largely from his heater. Which isn’t to suggest he throws smoke. As Eric Longenhagen wrote when profiling the 23-year-old southpaw for our 2020 Brewers Top Prospects list, Small is “blowing fastballs with mediocre velocity past opposing hitters because he hides the ball well and creates pure backspin.” Velocity-wise, the former Mississippi State Bulldog typically sits in the low 90s.

Professional hitters haven’t seen much of him due to the pandemic — Small’s curriculum vitae comprises 21 A-ball innings — but Southeastern Conference opponents are another story. They had plenty of opportunity to be impressed with the 28th-overall pick in the 2019 draft, particularly in his junior year when he went 10-2 with a 1.93 ERA, and 176 strikeouts in 107 innings.

A pair of fellow 2019 first-rounders sang Small’s praises when I asked which SEC pitchers they’d faced stood out the most.

Braden Shewmake, whom the Atlanta Braves drafted 21st overall out of Texas A&M, began by citing Casey Mize. The second pitcher he mentioned was Small. Read the rest of this entry »

JJ Bleday was drafted fourth-overall in 2019 after breaking out at Vanderbilt. Swinging from the left side, the now-23-year-old outfielder bashed an NCAA-best 26 home runs, putting up a 1.005 OPS along the way. And the Miami Marlins brought more than just a slugger on board. As Eric Longenhagen wrote in his prospect profile, Bleday is “a complete offensive package” who possesses “a superlative feel for the strike zone.”

Bleday didn’t get game action last year due to the pandemic, but his advanced tools and mature approach are impressive enough that the Marlins are giving him a long look this spring. Ranked 35th on our 2021 Top 100 Prospects list, Bleday is close to big-league ready despite having just 151 professional plate appearances, none above A-ball.

Bleday talked hitting prior to getting into the cage yesterday afternoon.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite icebreaker questions: Do you view hitting as more of an art, or as more of a science?

JJ Bleday: “I view it as more of an art. It’s definitely an art, because it’s your own craft. Everyone has their own style, and kind of mark on their swing, or variation of approaching the game.”

Laurila: A lot of the guys I’ve asked that question to have said “art,” but then talked about the science of hitting. Analytics are obviously a big part of the game now.

Bleday: “Oh, yeah, absolutely. With every sport. I mean, it’s big-time in golf nowadays.”

Laurila: Are hitting analytics a big part of who you are? Read the rest of this entry »

Stetson Allie was undergoing a transformation when he was first featured here at FanGraphs in April 2013. A second-round pick by the Pittsburgh Pirates three years earlier, the burly right-hander was being converting from a pitcher to a position player. Initially, that went well. Allie raked in A-ball, prompting us to feature him again, this time in interview form, in February 2014. As noted in the introduction, he’d morphed into “a corner infielder with plus raw power and a lot of swing-and-miss.”

The pendulum wasn’t done swinging. Much as Allie’s high-octane fastball had been erratic, his ability to make consistent contact was found wanting as he climbed the minor-league ladder. Midway through the 2017 season, Allie — by then in the Los Angeles Dodgers system — was moved back to the mound.

Fast forward to the present day, and Allie is in camp with the Tampa Bay Rays, looking every bit like a viable arm out of a big-league bullpen. In five spring-training appearances, the 6-foot-2, 245-pound flamethrower has tossed five hitless innings, with six punch-outs. The only blemish on his stat line is five free passes. Read the rest of this entry »

Chris Paddack, Emilio Pagán, and Drew Pomeranz are all a big part of the Padres’ plans this season. The latter two promise to play prominent roles in the San Diego bullpen, while Paddack will be counted on to bounce back and further fortify what looks to be a fearsome starting rotation. Here are snapshots from recent conversations with all three, the first of which was prompted by a question from a member of the San Diego media (apologies for not recalling who posed it), and the others coming via inquiries by yours truly.

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Chris Paddack took a step backwards in 2020. Coming off a rookie campaign that saw him log a 3.33 ERA over 26 starts, the 6-foot-4 right-hander struggled to the tune of a 4.73 ERA, and an even-uglier 5.02 FIP. He threw plenty of strikes, issuing just 12 walks over 58 innings, but all too often they got whacked. Looking back, Paddack has a pretty good idea of what led to the crooked numbers.

“Being a taller pitcher on the mound, my biggest success is when I’m north to south,” Paddack said earlier this spring. “Last year I was east to west. I was pulling off. My spin direction was outside of one, for y’all that know the baseball term of that. The axis of the baseball… I was getting two-seam run on my four-seam fastball… So, I [looked at] a lot of video from 2019, and well as 2018 in the minor leagues, really breaking down some of my mechanics on my front side. The term I use is ‘staying grounded as long as I can with my legs,’ and letting my upper body pinpoint a strong direction to whoever it is I’m throwing to that day.”

Per StatCast, Paddack’s four-seam spin rate was 2170 rpm last year, versus 2230 in 2019. His vertical ride decreased by 2.1 inches, while his horizontal increased by 2.2 inches. Velocity-wise, he threw two ticks harder, going from 93.9 mph to 94.1 mph. The 25-year-old Austin, Texas native doesn’t profess to be a pitching-analytics nerd, but he’s clearly begun dipping his feet into those waters. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a lot of questions to address regarding their pitching staff. With the regular season just two-plus weeks away, final decisions have yet to be made on starter and bullpen roles alike. Candidates abound on both fronts, particularly the latter, with an addition and an injury-induced subtraction further muddying the waters in recent days. Here are snapshots from four conversations — three recent, and one somewhat older — with pitchers who could figure prominently in the team’s plans.

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Left on the cutting room floor from an interview I did with JT Brubaker at the conclusion of last season was what he said about his two breaking balls. The 27-year-old right-hander considers his slider his best secondary. He’s thrown it since his senior year of high school, and it’s firm. At 86.7 mph (per StatCast), it registered as the 11th-hardest among the 58 pitchers who worked at last 40 innings and had the pitch in their arsenal. Brubaker told me that while it sometimes registers as a cutter, he always considers it a slider.

Eric Longenhagen had written in his 2020 prospect profile that Brubaker’s “relatively new” curveball was his best secondary pitch. I asked the righty what might have prompted that opinion.

“Possibly the analytical side of it,” surmised Brubaker. “It’s something I’d put in the back pocket, then brought back out. I’m always been able to throw a curveball, but I’ve never been fully consistent with it.”

The pitch had actually gone into his back pocket at the bequest of the organization, as they wanted him to focus on his slider. He eventually pulled it back out in need of “something with a little more velocity separation between my changeup and slider, something in the lower lower spectrum to slow the batters down more.” Read the rest of this entry »

Brady Singer played in the SEC for three seasons before being drafted by the Kansas City Royals, so he faced a ton of talented hitters prior to starting his professional career. Pitching for the University of Florida from 2016-2018, Singer matched up against the likes of JJ Bleday, Nick Senzel, Bryan Reynolds, and Evan White. Easy marks were few and far between.

Which of his collegiate opponents does Singer recall respecting the most? More specifically, which hitter had him laser-focused on making quality pitches, lest an errant offering result in serious damage?

“One that really stands out wasn’t in the SEC, but rather in Omaha,” Singer told me. “I believe it was the first game I pitched there, in 2017 when we went on to win the [College] World Series. It was Brendan McKay, from Louisville. When he got in the box, I knew I had to dial in. Just the bat path he had, and how he stood in the box — how he presented himself — was tough.”

McKay’s hitting future is obviously in limbo. Ostensibly still a two-way player, he pitched 49 big-league innings for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019, and logged just 11 plate appearances. Last season, a positive COVID test and subsequent shoulder surgery squelched his opportunities to do either. McKay’s Ohtani aspirations remain — he’s taking cuts in camp as he rehabs — but what happens going forward isn’t entirely clear.

Singer was correct when he told me that McKay could “really swing it back in college.” As the record shows, the fourth-overall pick in the 2017 draft slashed a snazzy .328/.430/.536 as a Cardinal. Singer — the 18th-overall pick a year later — is another story. Read the rest of this entry »

Dylan Bundy had his best statistical season in 2020. Pitching for the Los Angeles Angels after four-plus years with the Orioles, the 28-year-old right-hander posted career-bests in ERA (3.29), FIP (2.95), and K/9 (9.87). Small sample that it was — 11 starts in a pandemic-shortened campaign — the results represented a breath of fresh air. Bundy had become somewhat stagnant in Baltimore, putting up pedestrian numbers for a club that was going nowhere in terms of short-term contention. Change proved to be a panacea.

Bundy’s secondary pitches, paired with improved command, went a long way toward his success. The fourth-overall pick in the 2011 draft no longer has a plus fastball, but buoyed by a better understanding of his craft, he no longer needs one. With his third decade on planet Earth looming in the not-too-distant future — and his early-career injuries long in the rearview — Bundy has made the full transformation from thrower to pitcher.

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David Laurila: How would you describe your career so far?

Dylan Bundy: “It’s flown by, that’s for sure. You learn a lot when you first break into the league — 2016 is when I stayed here — and that’s [continued] up to now. The game doesn’t change, but with hitters’ swing paths, the analytics, the shifting… there are ways that the game does change, slowly over time. I think that would be the biggest thing I’d take away from when I first started, to now.”

Laurila: Have you changed?

Bundy: “Overall, I guess… numbers-wise, I have changed. Obviously, everybody knows about the velocity. It’s come down, so now I’m learning how to pitch more. Ever since 2016-2017, I’ve been learning how to throw more off-speed stuff, and finally it clicked. You know, these hitters can time up a 110 mph fastball if you throw it down the middle three times in a row. Eventually, they’re going to catch up to it.

“I’ve really learned that you’ve got to throw pitches for a purpose. That’s whether it’s off the plate, in, off-speed stuff earlier in the count, heaters later in the count, or whatever it may be on that specific day. But it’s definitely been a long journey, learning this stuff.” Read the rest of this entry »