The Kansas City Royals have made some significant changes in player development since the end of last season. Most-impactful might be the hiring of Drew Saylor as their new hitting coordinator. The 36-year-old Ohio native brings a progressive, technology-meets-behavior-theory mindset to the organization via the Pirates and Dodgers systems. He spent last season as Pittsburgh’s assistant minor-league hitting coordinator, a stint that followed three years of hands-on experience tutoring Los Angeles farmhands. Saylor was named Baseball America’s 2018 Minor League Manager of the Year.

In this year’s first “Talks Hitting” interview, Saylor discussed the philosophies he’s bringing to the Royals, and the developmental goals of talented-but-enigmatic outfield prospect Seuly Matias.

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David Laurila: What is your approach when working with young hitters?

Drew Saylor: “One thing I talk a lot about is being curious. The more we can get our players and staff to be curious about what is going on… for instance, what makes the player successful? What are some of his gap margins? From there we can go to, ‘OK, let’s look at this from a batted-ball data perspective. Let’s work this back to swing decisions, to movement assessment, to his training methodology.’ All of this to see how he’s able to transfer the skill to where it shows up in the game.

“That’s a big piece I like to see put into play: Working it back from the objective to the subjective, then working in tandem with the player. And not just the player. Also the other coaches, coordinators, and consultants. Maybe he has an off-season hitting guru? So, everyone who has touches with this player. Ideally the process is understood by everybody, and at the same time we’re able to go, ‘Hey, this process is leading to this product.’ If we want the product to change, we have to be able to work our way backwards from the product to the process. Then we can make more concrete, solid lines between those two areas.”

Laurila: It is often said that you can’t clone hitters.

Saylor: “Absolutely. Some of the smart people I’ve worked with talk about the individualization, the understanding of human capital — what they’re able to do, what the vision is from a physical-mental-social-emotional-spiritual perspective. Looking at your players with a more wholistic viewpoint. Read the rest of this entry »

Jake Rogers is regarded as a strong defender who has issues with the stick. Ten months ago, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote that the Detroit Tigers prospect, has “a shot to approach the low offensive bar at the catcher position, [but] his glove alone makes him a high-probability big leaguer.” Not much has changed. Rogers proceeded to log a .779 OPS in Triple-A, then slash .125/.222/.259 after receiving his first-ever call-up in late July. Most alarmingly, he fanned 130 times in 431 plate appearances between three levels.

Rogers’s efforts to improve his offensive game were what I had in mind when I approached him in the Tigers clubhouse last August. And while we did we did address that, a few tangential topics turned out to be more captivating. We’ll get to those after touching on postural adjustments.

“A big thing has been that my hips are a little up, and I want to get them back to level,” Rogers told me. “That way I can get my swing more on plane and cover more pitches. Right now, when I get to toe-touch my head is back, which causes my hips to be at an upward angle. I need to get more balanced, with my hips and shoulders both level.”

The former Tulane Green Wave standout had also lowered his hands a few inches, and worked to keep to his head still. What goes on between the ears is likewise important. With that in mind, I asked the 24-year-old if he ever finds himself thinking like a catcher in the batter’s box. Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Tabor is well-regarded primarily because of his fastball and his changeup. The latter, which he throws with a Vulcan-like grip, is his best pitch. The former, which gets solid ride but lacks plus velocity, is delivered with above-average command. Last year, the 21-year-old right-hander walked 16 batters, fanned 101, and logged a 2.93 ERA over 95.1 innings with the low-A Kane County Cougars. Bumped up two slots following Monday’s Starling Marte trade, Tabor currently ranks 11th on our Arizona Diamondbacks Top Prospects List.

His slider, a pitch he didn’t throw in games two summers ago, has become an important weapon for the 2017 third-round pick. Tabor credits Carson Cross with spurring its development. The two were together at PowerHouse Sports New Hampshire shortly before Cross took a job in the Milwaukee Brewers organization last February.

At the time, Tabor was a two-pitch pitcher. A third was needed, and to that purpose he was at wit’s end.

“Mentally, I was just so screwed up,” the Westford, Massachusetts native admitted. “I had pretty much convinced myself that I could never throw a good slider. I’d messed around with a lot of things, but it was still loopy and popped out of my hand. In high school, I could just flip that shit over and it was going to buckle knees, but up here they’ll sit on it and hit it 350 feet. I knew that I needed to make it harder, with more of a cutter-ish shape, so I approached Carson.”

Cross had thrown an effective slider at the University of Connecticut and later at the lower levels of the St. Louis Cardinals system. Moreover, he’d recently developed a strong interest in pitch design. He was just the tutor Tabor needed. Read the rest of this entry »

Julio Rodriquez has what it takes to become the face of a franchise. Nineteen years old and seemingly on a fast track to Seattle, the top prospect in the Mariners system possesses more than upper-echelon talent. He’s also blessed with a healthy dose of character and charisma. More on that in a moment.

Rodriguez currently sits 44th on The Board, and there’s a decent chance he’ll climb significantly from that slot in the not-too-distant future. MLB Pipeline has him at No. 18, while Baseball America is even more bullish on the tools Dominican-born outfielder. BA ranks Rodriquez as the eighth-best prospect in the game.

The numbers he put up last year between low-A West Virginia and high-A Modesto are eye-opening. In 367 plate appearances, Rodriguez slashed .326/.390/.540, with a dozen home runs. Keep in mind that he did this as an 18-year-old in his first season stateside. A year earlier, he was a precocious 17 and punishing pitchers in the Dominican Summer League.

Rodriguez is listed at 6’ 4”, 225, and Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto expects his right-handed stroke to propel plenty of baseballs over fences in years to come. Just as importantly, Dipoto sees a well-rounded skill set that is augmented by drive and desire.

“I don’t think he’s even scratched the surface of what he’s capable of from a power perspective,” opined Dipoto. “And he’s committed to improving in the areas you can really control, like defense and base running — the small nuances of the game.”

And then there is the aforementioned character and charisma. Read the rest of this entry »

Sam Mondry-Cohen was between his junior and senior years at the University of Pennsylvania when he first began working with the Washington Nationals. He’s come a long way since then. An unpaid intern for six week in the summer of 2009, Mondry-Cohen now holds the title of Assistant General Manager, Baseball Research & Development.

His initial front office experience was the epitome of humble. The Nationals didn’t even have an actual internship program at the time. As Mondry-Cohen explained it, “They were basically there to babysit me. I don’t know that anyone was really looking for any work product.”

What they got was a second sabermetric voice at a time when analytics had yet to become mainstream. Mondry-Cohen may have been majoring in English at Penn — African-American literature was his main focus — but he was an avaricious reader of FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus. He’d devoured The Book. In short, he was a nerd-in-training.

“I had the vocabulary, and a way of looking at the game, that wasn’t common back then,” recalled Mondry-Cohen. “The Nationals didn’t have an analytics department or an R&D department. They didn’t have any data analysts. Adam Cromie, who went on to become the assistant GM, was the Assistant Director of Baseball Operations. He was the one who appreciated my world view of baseball, and he did assign me a few projects.” Read the rest of this entry »

Triston Casas continues to grow, and not just developmentally on the field. The top prospect in the Red Sox farm system recently told a trio of reporters, yours truly included, that he’s put on 10 pounds of muscle, and gained nearly an inch in height, since the end of the season. Just a few days past his 20th birthday, the 2018 first-round pick is now 6’ 5″, 255.

Casas comes by his size naturally. Asked about his lineage, he explained that his father is “about the same size height-wise, but has put on a little weight and is bigger than me in terms of roundness.”

The hulking youngster is surprisingly agile and well-rounded for someone of his stature. While his long-term position will almost certainly be first base, Casas was drafted as a third baseman and has seen time at both infield corners since turning pro. His athleticism also makes him a candidate for left field.

His role model is a first baseman.

“I emulate Joey Votto as much as I can,” said Casas, who swings from the left side. “He’s my favorite player. I actually choke up on the bat from the first pitch. Every at bat. And with two strikes I’m 4-5 inches up the bat. If you’ve never seen me play, there are pictures with me way up the pine tar.”

There is also footage of the former Plantation, Florida prep propelling baseballs long distances. As Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote in his prospect profile, Casas “participated in multiple home run derbies during his amateur summers, and posted gaudy exit velocities during team pre-draft workouts.” They placed a 65/70 on the young slugger’s raw-power grade. Read the rest of this entry »

Ethan Hankins has one of the highest ceilings in Cleveland’s pitching pipeline. The 6-foot-6 right-hander possesses a first-round pedigree — he went 35th overall in 2018 — and a heater that sits mid-90s with late life. Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel ranked him 15th in Cleveland’s system last year. Moreover, he’s wise beyond his years. Still just 19 years old, Hankins is studious enough about his craft that he could reasonably be referred to as a pitching nerd.

Hankins split his first full professional campaign between Short-season Mahoning Valley and Low-A Lake County, logging a 2.55 ERA and fanning 71 batters in 60 innings. No less impressive are the strides he’s continued to make between the ears. The former Forsythe, Georgia prep may have bypassed Vanderbilt University to sign with the Indians, but his quest for knowledge has by no means waned. Influenced heavily by his off-season experiences at Full Count Baseball, it continues unabated.

Hankins discussed his cerebral approach, and the improvements he’s made to his repertoire, late in the 2019 season.

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David Laurila: Is pitching more of an art, or more of a science?

Ethan Hankins: “The game we’re playing right now, with all the analytical stuff we have access to, and use — especially with the Indians — it’s starting to become more of a science. I feel like it used to be more an art. Even a few years ago. But it’s been growing into something that can be called a science, because of the average velocities, the spin efficiencies, true spin, 2D spin, 3D spin. There are all of these numbers that can be beneficial if you know how to use them in the right way.“

Laurila: It sounds like you lean science.

Hankins: “Yes, but that’s not because the Indians have thrown it in my face. It’s because I’ve taken to learning how these numbers can benefit you. Granted, the Indians help a lot. They obviously have all of this knowledge. But not everybody uses it. We don’t get pressured to use it.”

Laurila: How do you use it?

Hankins: “There are a million different ways that… oh gosh. I’d say that I’m using it to develop my offspeed, more than anything. My curveball has made a huge jump over the past year. I don’t credit that solely to the Rapsodo, or any of the other technology we have access to, but that does give you a lot of insight. It tells you, ‘This is where you are.’ From there, you’re able to say, ‘OK, I want to be here; I want this pitch to have this much efficiency. This is the direction I want.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Seattle Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto said the following when I spoke to him in November:

“The best we can do is lay out a game plan, a quality game plan, and then track our success. In this game, everything can be tracked.”

That includes trades, and it’s no secret that Dipoto has made a lot of them since he was hired to replace Jack Zduriencik following the 2015 season. The exact number — this based on a perusal of transaction logs — is a whopping 106, which works out to more than two dozen annually. The subject broached, Dipoto acknowledged that “it’s a long spreadsheet.”

What does the spreadsheet show in terms of wins and losses? The plethora of deals precludes a detailed response to such a question, but the 51-year-old executive did provide an overview when asked. Read the rest of this entry »

Who will man the shortstop position for the Indians once the Francisco Lindor era is over? That largely depends on when Cleveland’s best player moves on, but the down-the-road answer could very well be Brayan Rocchio. The 18-year-old switch-hitter came into last season ranked No.4 on our Indians Top Prospects list.

Borrowing a boxing term, Rocchio punched above his weight in 2019. Listed at 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds, he slashed a wholly respectable .250/.310/.373 for the Mahoning Valley Scrappers in the short-season New York-Penn League. Stateside for the first time, the Caracas, Venezuela native put up those numbers against pitchers typically several years his senior.

Moreover, he did so as a comparable flyweight. With that in mind, I asked Indians GM Mike Chernoff just how impactful Rocchio’s bat can ultimately be, given his whippet-like frame.

“We have a lot of young international players who, when we signed them, were sort of undersized,” said Chernoff. “He’s one of those guys. But we see a ton of potential in his bat-to-ball ability, and in his defensive capabilities. He’s also held his own while super young for his level, and to us that’s a huge indicator of future success. We feel that as Brayan matures, as his body gets stronger and can handle the demands of a full season, he has a chance to be an impact guy.”

But again, just how impactful? While Rocchio’s physique will almost certainly fill out, he’ll be doing so from a 150-pound baseline. That’s water-bug territory, not future-thumper. Right? Read the rest of this entry »

In 2019, I once again had the pleasure of interviewing hundreds of people within baseball. Many of their words were shared in my Sunday Notes column, while others came courtesy of the FanGraphs Q&A series, the Learning and Developing a Pitch series, the Talks Hitting series, and a smattering of feature stories. Here is a selection of the best quotes from this year’s conversations, with the bolded lines linking to the pieces they were excerpted from.

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“I think Abner [Doubleday] when he set this game up a long time ago, he set it up the right way. Boom, boom, boom… Let’s try to keep it normal here. I was a shortstop. If you stuck me on the other side, then I became a second baseman. I played shortstop as a second baseman. That’s confusing. That’s Laurel and Hardy stuff.” — Ron Gardenhire, Detroit Tigers manager, January 2019

“[Gaylord] Perry threw a spitter. He wasn’t going to share that. Not unless I brought $3,000 to the park. That’s how much he said he’d charge to teach me the spitter. I was taking home $8,500. I didn’t want to give him 40% of my yearly take-home pay to try to learn a pitch that very few people can master.” — Steve Stone, Chicago White Sox broadcaster, January 2019 Read the rest of this entry »