In 2020, the San Diego Padres finally had their breakout season, going 37-23 in the pandemic-shortened sprint, good enough for the third-best record in baseball. A lot of players were responsible for getting them to where they ended up, but one of the best bits of news for the team was that Eric Hosmer was one of them. After signing a long-term contract prior to the 2018 season, Hosmer hit .259/.316/.412 in his first two seasons with the Friars, for a wRC+ of 93 and -0.5 combined WAR that placed him near the bottom of the ranks of baseball’s first baseman. But in 2020, with the highest average launch angle and lowest grounder percentage of his career, he hit .287/.333/.517, giving some hope that would turn things around.

If the first three months of 2021 are any indication, those hopes have mostly evaporated, ninth inning, game-tying home runs aside. Hosmer’s still hitting the ball very hard, but he’s largely back to his old, pre-2020 habits, hitting an inordinate number of pitches straight into the dirt, knocking out more ants than opposing pitchers. Since 2015, Statcast has kept track of what they call the “Sweet Spot” or pitches hit with a launch angle between eight and 32 degrees. Only twice has Hosmer been over 30%: in 2020 and his equally excellent 2017 season. For 2021, that mark has dropped to his lowest number yet, 22.3%. As a result, even with a better average exit velocity than last year, he’s missing 150 points of slugging percentage:

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Vladimir Guerrero spent 16 years in the majors, hitting .318 with 449 home runs and nabbing scores of overambitious baserunners with his cannon of an arm. Just a couple years ago, he gave his induction speech in Cooperstown after breezing into the Hall of Fame on his second appearance on the ballot. For a son getting into the same profession, matching those accolades is a tall order, one of Jon Rauchian proportions. But after a so-so start to his major league career, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is having a breakout season and now threatens to do something Dad never did: win a Triple Crown.

That the younger Guerrero is quite adept at hitting a baseball shouldn’t shock anyone, though his first two stints in the majors were admittedly more middling than magical. But hype is difficult, and I suspect that if he played under a nom de guerre rather than a nom de Guerrero, people would likely have been far more patient before starting to worry about him. As I wrote about Guerrero in my preseason breakout picks:

Perhaps not the gutsiest call, but it feels to me like people have soured way too much on Vladito. A 112 wRC+ won’t win any Silver Sluggers, but we have to remember he was just 21 last season. Let’s imagine that Guerrero Jr. wasn’t part of the imperial-Vlad bloodline and was just a guy in Triple-A in 2020 (in an alternate universe where the minor league season existed). If we translate Guerrero’s actual major league performance into a Triple-A Buffalo line, ZiPS estimates that he would’ve been hitting .288/.370/.526 as a 21-year-old in the International League. Would anyone be disappointed with this line? There would be cries of Free Vlad! echoing through the streets by June. I think players like Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. have spoiled us for normal awesome prospects.

While he was one of my favorite breakout picks, I certainly can’t claim to have seen a breakout on this particular level. If we look back at the preseason projections, neither could ZiPS:

Now, he hasn’t yet completed 2021 with a wRC+ of 206, but if he did, that’s in 99th percentile territory. I’ve been working on calibrating this model since the start of the season, and projected right now, his 90th percentile wRC+ gets a bump to 163, but 206 still would have been seen as a one-in-50 shot to happen.

As of Tuesday morning, Guerrero leads the American League in batting average, home runs, and RBI, baseball’s Triple Crown components. His sterling performance has been enough for a wRC+ bump of an impressive 27 points since March in ZiPS’ estimate of his current level of ability. At this point, it’s hard to argue his ceiling has been raised; the main question is how high. In the updated projections, which combine year-to-date with the rest-of-season projections, ZiPS has Guerrero leading the league in home runs and RBI and finishing second in batting average behind Michael Brantley. Steamer has Guerrero leading in all three categories.

Even if the stats were reset to zero, Vladito’s projections have improved to the point that he’d have a fighting chance to lead in the three stats, and be in the top 10 in each.

What this doesn’t tell us is the probability that Vlad does, in fact, win the Triple Crown. For that, I used the ZiPS season simulation and projected the rest of 2021 a million times for the American League, then added to the stats already in the books, counting — by computer, not by hand, of course– how many times each player led the league in the Triple Crown categories.

Injuries have been a red flag for Brantley, but he’s been healthy enough to qualify for the batting title in three consecutive seasons after missing more than 200 games in 2016 and ’17 combined. Assuming perfect health, ZiPS would give him about a 43% chance of taking the batting title, but with him already having missed time with a hamstring injury, he has a smaller margin of error in getting the required plate appearances. ZiPS sees Vlad at the back of the top 10 in rest-of-season batting average, but he’s got a 23-point cushion over the non-Brantley candidates. Also providing an assist is that two of the bigger threats, Mike Trout and Luis Arraez, are almost certainly going to fall short of 3.1 plate appearances per game (or lose too much BA if they fall just short in PA).

ZiPS still sees Matt Olson and Giancarlo Stanton as better home run hitters, but the four-homer edge to date is enough to leave Vlad the favorite over either. The computer projects him with a 44% shot to beat his dad’s career-high of 44; it surprises me too, but Vlad Sr. never led the league (or finished second) in any Triple Crown stat. The projections give him a 28% chance to pass the 50-homer threshold.

José Abreu isn’t repeating his 2020 season, but he’s still a player who should hit for power, even in a relative down season. As importantly, Abreu hits third or fourth in a White Sox lineup that’s been surprisingly potent for a team that’s lost Eloy Jiménez and Luis Robert. Nobody has more plate appearances with runners on base this season than Abreu. But the Jays are no slouches, and as with the other categories, Guerrero has the lead right now.

If you wanted to be lazy, you’d multiply Vlad’s probability of leading each category together and get 2.6%, decent odds of getting into the record books. That, of course, is something you cannot actually do since these aren’t independent variables. The hundred games of baseball that leave Guerrero with the home run title also leave him with the RBI title most of the time. Batting average isn’t as highly correlated with the others, but if Guerrero hits .340, well, many of those hits will be homers and/or drive in runners. All told, ZiPS gives him a 19.1% chance of winning the Triple Crown. Not a bad shot at something that’s been done once in the last half-century.

Leading all of baseball in the Triple Crown categories — the Triple Crown Magnifique, as I like to call it — is a trickier challenge. That one hasn’t been done since Mickey Mantle in 1956, and Vlad has tough competition in this one. Fighting against Fernando Tatis Jr. and Ronald Acuña Jr. in a battle for junior supremacy drops his chances from 19.1% to well under 1% (0.2%).

Whether he wins the Triple Crown or not, it appears the Vladimir Guerrero Jr. era is in full swing. I don’t have kids, but I’m at least of the belief that most parents hope to see their children exceed their accomplishments. Vladito has a long way to go, but 2021 looks like the start of a run that may end with him achieving just that.

The 2020 Cubs won the NL Central, but they did it in a fairly unusual way, getting minimal contributions from Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, and Javier Báez. In 151 combined games, their trio of stars combined for a mere 1.6 WAR, mostly coming from Rizzo (1.0); back when the Cubs won the World Series in 2016, Bryant alone racked up nearly eight wins. Last season, players like Ian Happ and Willson Contreras were the ones who propelled the team to October baseball, not the old core.

With Báez, Bryant, and Rizzo all set to enter free agency this offseason, the Cubs, as in many a heist movie, hoped to bring back the old crew for one last big score in 2021. But unlike many good yarns about high-stakes thievery, the Cubs largely ignored the supporting cast. The studio had cut the budget, an obvious necessity what with the Cubs playing in a tiny, small-market city, boasting merely the fourth-best attendance in baseball in 2019, and the reality that no owner in baseball history has ever made money. Yu Darvish was off to film a high-budget action movie in San Diego; the only primary member of the 2019 rotation still on the roster in ’21 is Kyle Hendricks.

Without much in the way of new blood, they needed their old core to shine one last time. And luckily for the Cubs, this is largely what has happened. In a similar number of games as the 2020 season, our troika of protagonists has combined for 4.8 WAR, tripling their contribution from the prior season. With the addition of Nolan Arenado, the Cardinals got most of the preseason NL Central ink but the Cubs have been more impressive at the box office. Read the rest of this entry »

11:59

Dan Szymborski: dangit

12:00

Dan Szymborski:

12:00

Dan Szymborski: There we go, third time’s the charm!

12:00

Dan Szymborski: Doing a piece on the Cubs Big Three FA for tomorrow!

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There are myriad reasons why the San Francisco Giants have been causing trouble in the NL West this season, crashing what was expected to be an exclusive party for the Padres and Dodgers. One of them is the starting rotation, which generally ranks in the top five in baseball whether you go by simple stats like ERA (third) and ERA- (fourth) or peripheral ones like FIP (second). Of the starting pitchers, none stands taller than Kevin Gausman, once a highly a touted Orioles prospect who has spent most of the last decade as a breakout candidate but hadn’t had that one big season. Wel, it appears he’s having it now.

At the top of the major-league leaderboards, there’s a lot of Gausman. Only Jacob deGrom has a better ERA among qualifiers, and that pitcher is having what could be a year for the ages. Gausman’s sixth in WAR, fifth in FIP, seventh in swinging strikes, and 10th in contact rate. And while he’s not likely to finish the year with an ERA anywhere near his current microscopic 1.27, his 2.20 FIP is an easy career-best so far and not explained entirely by the drop in league-wide offense.

So, what has changed for Gausman? The most obvious difference in the stats is the drop in home run total, a particular bugaboo for him at various points in his career. Playing in San Francisco instead of Baltimore has undoubtedly helped alleviate that concern, as has the decline in home runs in 2021, but just as with his overall FIP, it’s not just the environment. ZiPS’ peripheral home run estimator, zHR, sees his “true” home run rate as 2.1% of plate appearances, compared to his actual 1.7%. There’s been an interesting shift here; prior to 2020, ZiPS saw Gausman as the sixth-largest underperformer in terms of home runs allowed, allowing 130 homers where zHR expected to see only 108. Since joining the Giants, they’ve been a perfect match (13 homers vs. 13 zHR). Read the rest of this entry »

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that 2021 hasn’t gone exactly according to the plans of the Minnesota Twins. In the American League Central standings, the club currently ranks dead last, looking up at the hindquarters of even the Detroit Tigers. Only the Orioles and Rangers have worse records in the AL this season, and neither of those teams was expected to be even remotely relevant come October. This isn’t a case of a team starting off 0-3 and the standings looking funny; clubs are passing the one-third mark of the season this week. Like most good teams that are struggling, the problem is a multifaceted one and not easily repaired. But at 12 games behind the White Sox in a weak division, urgent measures are required if the Twins aren’t ready to go 2022 calendar shopping.

Twins diehards would tell you that injuries share a lot of the blame, and they definitely have a point here. If you take a peek at our Injury Report, you’ll find 10 players currently on the Injured List; the team has had 22 total IL stints this season. By contrast, the Royals have had only 10 players on the IL at any point this season, with the Tigers at 12, the White Sox at 13, and Cleveland at a minuscule five. At some point or another this season, the majority of the team’s desired starting lineup has been on the shelf with an injury. Opening Day was the only game where Twins managed to have a starting lineup consisting entirely of the players initially expected to get the majority of the playing time at each position. The Twins have been decimated by injuries, and that is naturally going to have a significant effect on the bottom line.

Case solved, case closed? Hold on there, take those books out of your backpack; we’re not done here. The injuries have affected the team, but they only explain part of the win shortfall. To get a rough idea of this, I went back to what the ZiPS-projected record for each team at this point would be after the games of June 3, then re-did the projection with the preseason projections for players while reflecting the actual distribution of playing time.

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12:04

Dan Szymborski: OMG ITS CHAT TIME

12:06

Dan Szymborski: That was my screwup (which I’ve fixed). My brain was a little fried and I as trying to compare the excellence to full season ERAs to show how high they ranked, but I messed up the talking point and ranked it *with* the full seasons instead of contrasting

12:06

Dan Szymborski: And didn’t bring 1981, 1994, 1995 back in

12:06

Dan Szymborski: Everything else should be solid though

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Jacob deGrom‘s already microscopic ERA needs even a stronger microscope to spy it after his outing Monday, a six-inning shutout against the Arizona Diamondbacks that lowered his ERA to 0.71. We’re no longer in April, and we’re not even in May, so this new level of dominance can’t be easily ignored as the product of a small sample. Once performance of this magnitude reaches June intact — and 0.71 is deGrom’s second-highest seasonal ERA after the end of an outing — you have to seriously give at least a thought to the prospect of a pitcher making a run at Bob Gibson’s live-ball ERA record.

We had a chance at this happening last year, thanks to the asteriskesque 2020 season and its 60-game slate, shortened as a consequence of COVID-19. I talked about the possibility going into last season, with ZiPS projecting a one-in-four shot of someone catching Gibson’s 1.12. Nobody did it in the end, but Shane Bieber’s 1.63 was the one of the best ERAs for a qualifying pitcher since Gibson’s in 1968. Bieber and Trevor Bauer, the two pitchers who came closest, fell well short of Gibson but given the relatively high levels of league offense, their efforts were enough to get them the third and fourth spots on the all-time single-season ERA+ ranks.

Catching Gibson in a 60-game season would have been an accomplishment, but not really a full one. Records are naturally set in conditions that benefit players, and Gibson was no exception: 1968 was dubbed the Year of the Pitcher thanks to a league ERA of 2.98, nearly a half-run lower than any season since the spitball was banned. Gibson’s 258 ERA+, which takes into account league offense, still sits atop the leaderboard, but at least it doesn’t utterly wreck the recent field, which consists of Pedro Martinez (243, 1999), Roger Clemens (227, 1997), and Zack Greinke (227, 2015) among others.

But since 2021 is a full 162-game season, catching a 1.12 ERA would feel a lot less like sneaking in through a loophole. A significant drop-off in league offense (to a 4.02 ERA) could be credited for an assist, but it’s not a number that is unfair relative to baseball history. So, can he do it?

deGrom has missed a few starts so far in 2021, with no apparent ill results to his performance, and the Mets have been cautious with his pitch totals; he’s averaged fewer than 70 pitches in his last three starts. That’s beneficial to his chances, as no star pitcher has a long-term ability to keep their ERA that low, even Gibson; just clearing the one-inning-per-team-game requirement optimizes things. deGrom will likely end up with around 30 games started this season, so a good place to begin in gauging his odds is to see if anyone’s come close to 1.12 in a span of 30 games starts, crossing over seasons, since 1920. I’m only listing unique 30-game runs since there is naturally quite a bit of overlap in runs:

Gibson’s best 30-game span was even better than his 1.12 ERA, dipping under one. J.R. Richard’s presence on this list is especially cruel, as his 30-game span ended with the final game of his major league career. Before Richard’s next start, he suffered a stroke caused by a blood clot, and while he attempted a comeback a few years later in the minors, he was no longer the same pitcher.

Nobody catches 1.12 on this list, but many come close enough that the result is at least plausible. Jake Arrieta was only a run from accomplishing the feat. deGrom himself appears on this list, his 30-game span running from April 21, 2018, through April 3, 2019. His 1.40 ERA over 30 starts comes out to an ERA+ of 266 in a higher run environment (by about a tenth of a run) than 2021 so far. A tenth of a run isn’t a lot, but to break a record like this, every advantage helps. Yes, Mets fans, I see that 10-9 record for deGrom over that stretch.

To get an idea of deGrom’s probability of finishing with an ERA of 1.12 or better, I worked with a technique I’ve used in the past, which “simulates” a season using Monte Carlo algorithms and a smoothed model of a pitcher’s starts based on their projections and historical usage. At 189.2 innings (what he has in the bag, plus the 22 starts of 6.3 innings per start in his depth chart projections), he needs to allow 23 or fewer runs or a 1.23 ERA for the rest of the season. At 162 total innings, he’d have to maintain a 1.30 ERA the rest of the way.

deGrom’s no slam-dunk to catch Gibson, but he’s got a fighting chance, with my model estimating a 3.1% chance to beat a 1.12 ERA, or more precisely, Gibson’s 1.122538 (no cheating with rounding here!). That’s about 31-to-1, a little better than getting the exact number in roulette and roughly the probability of a 20-homer hitter getting a round-tripper in any given at-bat. In other words, it’s more likely than not that he falls short of the feat, but it’s definitely possible and firmly in the realm of plausibility.

Jacob deGrom is having the best run of his career and quickly developing a Hall of Fame case based on Koufax-levels of peak performance. Catching Bob Gibson would be a fantastic sentence on a plaque in Cooperstown. Hopefully, the Mets’ offense has the decency to give him more than 10 wins if it should come to pass!

The Braves are short one outfielder for at least six weeks, with Marcell Ozuna placed on the IL after injuring two fingers on his left hand while sliding into third against the Red Sox on Tuesday night. It wasn’t immediately obvious whether Ozuna would miss significant time, with manager Brian Snitker telling the press that the two-time All-Star was going back to Atlanta for tests, but with Wednesday came the news that his stay on the shelf would be a long one.

Ozuna has gotten off to a poor start in 2021, hitting .213/.288/.356 in just over 200 plate appearances, for a 79 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR — a major disappointment for a player coming off an OPS of 1.067 last season. It wouldn’t be the first time he had a bit of a letdown year after what seemed to be a breakout campaign, as was the case with his two seasons in St. Louis, but at least he hit for enough batting average then to be a league-average player in a corner outfield position.

Atlanta hasn’t received much production from Ozuna, but there were several reasons to think that his overall lines would recover. His power numbers are down from past seasons, but he’s partially compensated for that with some of the best plate discipline of his career. ZiPS thought his BABIP of .244 should have actually been more like .298 from his contact data, and Statcast saw similar underperformance, with an xBA of .268 and an xSLG of .471, both numbers more in line with his typical showing. A repeat of 2020’s 179 wRC+ was always unreasonable, but even with this early slump, his Depth Chart-projected wRC+ was still at the 123 it was back in March.

Ozuna suffered a similar injury in 2019, breaking the middle and ring fingers on his right hand while sliding during a pickoff attempt. It probably won’t assuage the worries of Braves fans that he went from an .847 OPS before that injury to a .729 OPS after returning, but I wouldn’t worry much about this limited precedent. I haven’t found much underperformance in hitters returning from broken fingers, and month-to-month play is quite volatile without any injury-based explanations involved. Short of significantly worse news, I wouldn’t be especially concerned about Ozuna after he returns, probably at or near the All-Star break. At least he can take it as consolation that he broke his fingers doing actual baseball things, unlike Zach Plesac, who suffered a broken thumb taking off his shirt.

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12:03

Dan Szymborski: IT IS CHAT TIME

12:03

Dan Szymborski: Haniger

12:03

Dan Szymborski: It should have some impact in season-to-season. less so in-season since it’s a simpler model

12:06

Dan Szymborski: You see switch-hitters with platoon splits give it up from time to time

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