Clayton Richard has been busy preparing for a 2020 season that won’t be starting any time soon. He’s done so without a team — the 36-year-old southpaw remains a free agent — and in a manner to which he’s not accustomed. Fifteen years after being drafted out of the University of Michigan, and with 275 big-league appearances under his belt, Richard is endeavoring to revamp both his arsenal and his delivery. To say that he’s doing so in a meticulous, scientific fashion would be an understatement.

What you’re about to read is the result of multiple exchanges with Richard, as well as abbreviated reports (used here with permission) from his offseason visit to Driveline. We’ll start with Richard giving an overview of what he’s dubbed “Project 2020.”

“Before the baseball world came to a screeching halt, I was frequently asked ‘What are you doing now?’ by friends and family alike,” Richard told me. “Although the question was simple enough, I didn’t feel comfortable delving into exactly what I was doing with my time – mostly due to the fact that I didn’t think the majority of people really care where my spin axis was that week. It’s much easier to say, ‘Just throwing every day and waiting for the right opportunity.’
 
“The reality is that I’ve been up to a lot more than simply throwing a few baseballs. I’ve used the last few months to make significant changes. The effectiveness of my repertoire had changed for the worse over the past two seasons. Based on that, I could choose to continue down the same path — one with an aim to execute pitches at a higher rate but likely be relegated to a left-handed bullpen role — or I could veer headfirst into changing how my pitches profiled to right-handed hitters in an effort to level out the platoon splits for longer outings.

“I debated the choice many times over. My wife likely got sick of my asking her, or talking to myself. Ultimately, I came up with a plan to revamp my arsenal to return in time as a starting pitcher, the role I have worked to become since first pitching in my backyard with my dad squatting behind the plate and my mother standing in the box. Read the rest of this entry »

Who was better, Jim Edmonds or Andruw Jones?

I asked that question in a Twitter poll earlier this week, expecting that it would be a close call. Centerfielders both, they played 17 seasons each and finished with similar WAR totals (Jones 67, Edmonds 64.5). Making the comparison especially intriguing was the fact that one was clearly the better defender, while the other was clearly the better hitter.

Instead of a nail-biter, I got a landslide. A total of 4,017 people voted, and a resounding 71.4% opted for Jones. Edmonds, despite having a huge edge in wRC+, garnered a meager 28.6%.

My eyebrows raised a full inch when I unearthed these statistical comps:

Edmonds had a career 132 wRC+. So did Wade Boggs, George Brett, Rod Carew, Tony Gwynn, Todd Helton, and Billy Williams (among others).

Jones had a 111 wRC+. So did Russell Branyan, Bernard Gilkey, Geoff Jenkins, Adam Lind, Hal Morris, and Neil Walker (among others). Read the rest of this entry »

Bruce Zimmermann stood out in Orioles camp this spring. That wasn’t entirely by accident. The 25-year-old left-hander had begun opening eyes last season, and he reported to Sarasota having visited Driveline over the winter. No wheels were reinvented during his week at the Seattle-area facility, but his mechanics did undergo some fine-tuning. And not from scratch; Zimmermann had already started down that road thanks to Baltimore pitching coordinator Chris Holt.

Last year was Holt’s first with the Orioles, and Zimmermann was fairly new himself. The Baltimore native joined the organization in July of 2018, coming over as part of the trade-deadline deal that sent Kevin Gausman to Atlanta. The Braves had taken Zimmermann in the fifth round of the 2017 draft out of the University of Mount Olive, where he earned a degree in business management.

Asked about his course of study, Zimmermann told me that he considers himself a good problem solver, and if baseball didn’t work out he’d have laid the foundation for a career in project management. Analogy in mind, I posited that being a pitcher tends to lend itself to problem solving.

“Hopefully not, but yes,” responded Zimmermann, who logged a 3.60 ERA in 140 innings last year between Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk. “That’s one way to look at it, but I prefer to see it more as critical thinking and processing things in the moment. When you’re on the mound, you don’t really think in an analytical way; it comes across more as intuition. But you are creating a strategy for certain hitters, and whatnot, before the game. That follows along the lines of problem solving.”

The juxtaposition — intuition on one side, critical thinking on the other — prompted me to ask if he considers pitching to be more of an art, or more of a science? Read the rest of this entry »

Al Kaline was not only a great player, he had a reputation of being both humble and personable. Both qualities came to the fore when I interviewed the Detroit Tigers legend several years ago in Lakeland, Florida. Sitting on a stool inside the Tigers’ spring training clubhouse, Kaline not only took the time to answer my questions about his career, he did so graciously. One day after his death at age 85, here is our conversation.

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David Laurila: What kind of hitter did you consider yourself?

Al Kaline: “I was basically a line drive hitter. I was a put-the-ball-in-play hitter who tried not to strike out. I moved the runners along if the situation called for it. I tried to be patient and get a good pitch — I didn’t want to get myself out by swinging at bad pitches — and I didn’t worry about getting two strikes on me. I felt that I could handle the bat well enough to hit with two strikes.”

Laurila: Not striking out was more important in your era than it is now.

Kaline: “Absolutely. Striking out was something… some of the power hitters were striking out 100 times, but otherwise very few guys were striking out 100 times. It was about putting the ball in play and making the other team make plays. So yeah, we didn’t strike out nearly as much.”

Laurila: Why do you think that was? Read the rest of this entry »

The first time I interviewed Keston Hiura was over the phone. This was a few months after he’d been taken ninth overall by the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2017 draft. Hiura was playing for the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, and he called at the assigned time from a Midwest League ballpark after batting practice. I don’t recall which ballpark.

I was in Lowell, Massachusetts at a New York-Penn League game that had already started. It was loud at LeLacheur Park, so I talked to Hiura from the relative quiet of a stairwell down the left-field line. The interview went well. I found the former UC Irvine Anteater to be both forthcoming and articulate.

The second time I interviewed Hiura was at the Brewers spring training complex, four weeks ago. Standing face-to-face — closer than the six-foot distance now deemed necessary — I accused him of being boring.

Truth be told, the pertinent ground had already been covered. In our earlier long-distance conversation we’d gone over the toe tap into a high leg kick, the inside-out swing with a high finish, the way he kept both hands on the bat. For good measure, we’d touched on his patience-paired-with-aggression approach.

Everything that was true then is true now. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Rozema had a colorful career. A free-spirited changeup artist, the Grand Rapids, Michigan native debuted with the Detroit Tigers in 1977 — one year after Mark “The Bird” Fidrych took baseball by storm — and while injuries soon took their toll, he started off with a bang. In a whirlwind rookie season, Rozema worked 218.1 innings, and went 15-7 with a 3.09 ERA.

He wasn’t averse to having fun, nor was he immune from trouble. Rozema was involved in multiple fracases, both on and off the field. On one occasion he emerged, in the words of Royals outfielder Willie Wilson, looking a lot like Rocky Raccoon.

This interview — originally intended for a book project that has remained on the back burner — was conducted in 2010, at Tigers fantasy camp in Lakeland, Florida.

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David Laurila: How did you come to sign with the Tigers [in 1975]?

Dave Rozema: “I was drafted in the fourth round, but it was in the January [secondary phase]. In the summer draft, I hadn’t been drafted until the 27th round [by San Francisco], so I wasn’t really that good. I had been offered a full ride to Eastern Michigan, along with Bob Owchinko and Bob Welch, but I decided to go to Grand Rapids Community College. I wasn’t a big scholar; my grades weren’t that good.

“[Tigers scout] Bob Sullivan asked me, ‘Hey, do you want to play baseball?’ I went, ‘Yeah.’ He went, ‘I’ll get you a few bucks. Detroit. Fourth round.’ My heart said I wanted to play pro ball, so I signed.”

Laurila: Your first professional season was in Clinton, Iowa, with Jim Leyland as your manager. Read the rest of this entry »

When Eric Longehagen and Kiley McDaniel blurbed Sam Delaplane last March, they called the Seattle Mariners pitching prospect “an interesting sleeper.” Pointing to his eye-popping strikeout numbers in Low-A, they went on to suggest that Delaplane — unranked despite the platitudes — “might get pushed quickly.”

Delaplane proceeded to prove our scouting duo correct. Following 21 relief outings in Hi-A Modesto, the righty ascended to Arkansas, where he flat out shoved against Texas League hitters. In 37 Double-A innings, Delaplane fanned 58 while allowing just 13 hits. His ERA was a microscopic 0.49.

Flash back six years. In order to compete collegiately, the San Jose native had to travel 2,400 miles — and not to a baseball hotbed. The lone offer Delaplane received coming out of high school was from Eastern Michigan University; the low-profile program was coming off of consecutive losing records in the Mid-American Conference.

Delaplane spent four years at Eastern, earning a degree in marketing. Sold mostly on the promise of his strong senior season — a 3.27 ERA and first-team All-MAC honors — Seattle selected Delaplane in the 23rd round of the 2017 draft.

His most-lethal weapon had yet to evolve and blossom. It wasn’t until after Delaplane got into pro ball that he “flipped the switch” and turned a hook into what Longenhagen described as a “power, Brad Lidge-style slider with late, downward movement.”

Defining Delaplane’s best offering is a matter of semantics. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Matt Bowman, Chaz Roe, and Justus Sheffield — on how they learned and developed their sliders and cutters.

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Matt Bowman, Cincinnati Reds

“With the unfortunate news of Roy Halladay [in November 2017] came the story of Mariano Rivera teaching him the cutter. I watched the interviews they did about how they threw it, and what their cues are. Halladay had that ball where he drew the outline of where his fingers should be. I literally gripped it the same way.

Read the rest of this entry »

Zach Davies threw a lot of changeups last season. Taking the hill for the Milwaukee Brewers, the now-27-year-old right-hander relied on the pitch an eyebrow-raising 31.3% of the time. In 2018, that number was 12.2%. In 2017, it was 14%.

Why the notable uptick in change-of-pace pitches?

“I was getting guys out in any way possible,” explained Davies, who was dealt to the San Diego Padres this past November. “Going into last year, I was coming off injuries [rotator cuff inflammation and lower back tightness] and wasn’t guaranteed a starting spot. I wasn’t able to go into spring training and work on pitches, and best way for me to get outs was fastball-changeup. That’s why the numbers were skewed. This year there will be a lot more of a mix.”

Not having a feel for his curveball, Davies threw his bender just 3.5% of the time last year, down from the 15-16% range he’d been accustomed to. His cutter usage was also down, albeit by only a few percentage points. I asked the command-artist what returning to more of a mix will entail.

“It’s really just going into games with the desire to throw different pitches,” said Davies. “It’s forcing myself to throw curveballs and cutters, everything, in every count. Coming here — them trading for me — I have the sense of having a job. I can work on things without feeling like I might be sacrificing my season.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Hyers has emerged as one of the game’s most respected hitting coaches. His resume speaks for itself. As Boston’s minor league hitting coordinator from 2013-2015, Hyers helped hone the skills of players like Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, and Rafael Devers. He then moved on to Los Angeles, where he was the assistant hitting coach for division-winning Dodgers teams in 2016 and 2017. Since returning to the Red Sox as their hitting coach prior to the 2018 season, the 48-year-old Georgia native has seen the club score the second-most runs in baseball. Moreover, he’s played a key role in the emergence of Betts, Bogaerts, and Devers as bona fide offensive machines.

Hyers discussed his hitting philosophies, and the strides made by multiple Red Sox hitters, late in the 2019 season.

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David Laurila: Is there such a thing as a Red Sox hitting philosophy?

Tim Hyers: “Yes. I think all hitters are different. I really do. That said, the Red Sox hitting philosophy is pitch selection, game planning, and mechanics. If we don’t dominate the strike zone, if we don’t have a good plan, if we don’t have solid mechanics — then we’re going to run into trouble. Every at-bat, those three things come into play.”

Laurila: The Red Sox probably aren’t different from most teams in that respect…

Hyers: “No. Teams are pretty similar. But when you’re talking about those basics, how do you peel back the layers? What is getting to the player? How is the player consuming the information? How is he buying into the importance of those three things?

“The mechanical realm is probably the one that can go in many different directions, depending on what organization you talk to, or what hitter you talk to. I really believe every hitter is different, but they also do similar things. How they go about them is what’s different.”

Laurila: You were in the organization [from 2013-2015], then came back [in November 2017]. Is the mechanical realm approached differently now than it was in your first go-round? Read the rest of this entry »