The flurry of deals made by the San Diego Padres on Sunday culminated with a massive trade with the Seattle Mariners. The headlining player headed to Southern California is catcher Austin Nola, along with two relievers, Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla. Ben Clemens will address the newest additions to the Padres bullpen and Eric Longenhagen will have the analysis of the prospect/recently-prospect haul the Mariners received from the Padres — Taylor Trammell, Andres Muñoz, and Ty France — a little later this morning. The fourth player headed to the Northwest, Luis Torrens, is likely to take Nola’s place on the Mariners roster as their starting catcher.

With the Padres acquiring Jason Castro from the Angels earlier in the day, the addition of Nola completes an overhaul of the Padres catching corps. As a group, the Padres catchers had put up a collective .146/.228/.291 slash line, good for a 45 wRC+ and -0.3 WAR. They weren’t the worst hitting group of backstops in the majors this year, but it was a clear need for the Padres, who have their eyes on a deep postseason run.

Castro is a fine offensive upgrade in his own right but the easy answer to the Padres problem was to simply add the best hitting catcher in the majors in 2020. That’s exactly what they’ve done in adding Nola. His .380 wOBA ekes out J.T. Realmuto by just a single point, his 145 wRC+ is six points higher than the star Phillies backstop, and they’re tied with 1.2 WAR apiece. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday night, Framber Valdez struck out 11 Angels across seven innings in an easy 11-4 Astros win. All 11 strikeouts came off of Valdez’s curveball — six swinging and five looking. It wasn’t a completely clean performance, however. The left-hander allowed four runs on six hits and two walks but the Astros offense powered their way past a hodgepodge collection of Los Angeles pitchers. Still, he pushed his strikeout rate up to 26.0%, a nearly six-point increase over what he posted last year. While the additional punch outs are a nice development, the biggest difference for Valdez this season has been his excellent command.

Valdez’s raw stuff has never been a question. He relies on a plus curveball and a mid-90s sinker, both of which induce above average whiff rates and result in groundball contact over 60% of the time batters put them in play; his 62.9% groundball rate over the last three years is the third highest in baseball since his debut in 2018. He enjoys two key skills for success on the mound but he’s been undermined by his complete lack of command. Among all pitchers who threw at least 100 innings between 2018 and 2019, Valdez’s 14.1% walk rate was the third highest in the majors.

A high walk rate and a high groundball rate can be a dangerous combination. Groundballs rarely turn into extra-base hits but they find holes in the defense more often than fly balls. With runners on base, groundballs turn into hits a little more often, from a BABIP of .234 with bases empty to a BABIP of .253 with runners on. For Valdez, that’s meant a BABIP higher than league average and a strand rate well below league average, a combination that led to an ERA almost a full run higher than his FIP last year. Read the rest of this entry »

At this point in his career, Eric Hosmer is a known quantity. A few good offensive seasons during his 10 years in the majors have been marred by just as many poor campaigns at the plate. Collectively, he’s been 7% better than league average as a hitter during his career. And because he’s been in the league so long, it’s pretty clear why he’s been unable to produce consistently. Among the more than 500 players who have qualified for the batting title since Hosmer debuted in 2011, his groundball rate is 20th at 54.3%.

With more than half of his batted balls getting pounded into the ground, Hosmer’s success has been dangerously tied to his BABIP. This table of batted ball stats from 2015 onwards tells most of the story:

Hosmer has never had trouble making solid contact. It’s just that more often than not, that hard contact is made on groundballs. That tendency to put the ball on the ground has only gotten worse since joining the Padres in 2018, and it’s come with an elevated strikeout rate as well. Since signing his eight-year deal, he’s been 7% below league average at the plate and has accumulated -0.5 WAR over two seasons. His contract and lack of performance has become a big problem for the Padres.

Things might be looking up for Hosmer in 2020, however. He started off the year with five hits in three games including two doubles and a home run. A stomach issue sent him to the Injured List for 10 days and he struggled in his first few games back, his body likely still recovering from losing some weight while he was sidelined. But from August 13-17, he put together a five-game hitting streak that included three home runs. Because of his missed time earlier in the season, he’s only accumulated 56 plate appearances, but there have already been some significant changes to his approach that deserve investigation.

Here’s the same table as above, this time with 2020 included.

Hosmer’s batted ball profile looks nearly unrecognizable from his previous career norms. His groundball rate has dropped to a career low, and his fly ball rate is among the league leaders at 46.5%. This spring, Hosmer made some comments recognizing the deficiencies of his approach and acknowledged the changes he needed to make:

“I’ve got to get the ball in the air a little more. I’ve got to drive the ball a little more. I hit the ball really hard. It just goes on the ground.”

This isn’t the first time Hosmer has expressed a desire to hit the ball in the air more often. He made similar comments back in 2018. But this is the first time that sentiment has led to an actual change in approach.

When a batter makes significant changes to his batted ball profile, the simple assumption is that he’s made a swing change, as so many other batters have recently. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Hosmer. Here’s an example swing from 2019:

And here’s a swing from 2020:

Hosmer still has the long, loopy swing that he’s always had. The leg kick is still present as a timing mechanism. If he made any mechanical changes to his swing, they’re likely small tweaks rather than the big, sweeping changes we’ve seen from batters like Justin Turner. In The Athletic interview linked above, Hosmer mentions maintaining balance on his back leg as a way to prevent him from swinging down on the ball. That minor mechanical adjustment is certainly present in his 2020 swing shown above but it probably isn’t the main source of his new batted ball profile; instead, a change to his swing profile is likely what’s driving the change in batted ball outcomes. Here’s Hosmer’s swing rate grouped by pitch type during his career.

He’s simply stopped swinging at breaking balls and offspeed pitches and has focused his approach on attacking fastballs. Over his career, his groundball rate against breaking balls is 57.7% and it’s even higher against offspeed pitches (60.6%). By reducing the number of swings on pitches that produce his highest rates of groundball contact, he’s bound to reduce his overall groundball rate. His historic groundball rate against fastballs has been high as well (53.2%), but this year he’s elevating the hard stuff he sees. His average launch angle against fastballs has increased by 10 degrees this year and his average launch angle against breaking balls has increased by 20 degrees!

There have been periods earlier in his career where his rolling average launch angle has been this high, but not since joining the Padres. (It should be noted that his average launch angle was higher (17.2 degress) through August 16 but he’s hit a bunch of groundballs in the days since — such is the nature of these early season stats.)

Hosmer hasn’t just increased his launch angle, he’s also changed his batted ball distribution. He’s had a fairly even distribution of batted balls throughout his career, with a 34.2% pull rate balanced by hitting to the opposite field 28.7% of the time. This year, his pull rate is up to 44.2%, easily a career high. And because he’s elevating the ball more often while still maintaining his hard hit rate, his barrel rate is also at a career high 12.2%.

Changing his swing profile has also helped him reduce his strikeout rate to where it was in Kansas City. His chase rate has dropped by four points and his contact rate has increased by more than 12 points, up to a career high 85.7%. Hosmer has a new plan at the plate. When he’s ahead in the count, he’s swinging at non-fastballs just 28.6% of the time, nearly 25 points lower than last year. He’s focused on attacking fastballs and pitches he can handle. And when he makes contact, he’s pulling the ball more often and elevating.

This new approach at the plate has resulted in a reinvention for Eric Hosmer. Nearly every single change he’s made has helped him produce better results at the plate. We’re getting close to the point where these underlying statistics become statistically reliable. It certainly seems like Hosmer has finally figured out the adjustments he needed to make to regain his productivity at the plate.

Thanks are due to Eric Longenhagen for sharing his notes on Hosmer’s adjustments.

Earlier this week, Jay Jaffe detailed Fernando Tatis Jr.’s ascent to superstardom. The 21-year-old shortstop is one of the most exciting players in baseball and is among the league leaders in nearly every meaningful offensive and defensive statistic. But he’s not the only player providing elite production from an up-the-middle position for the Padres. If you filter the position player WAR leaderboards to include players 23-years-old and younger, you’ll find one of Tatis’ teammates just a couple of spots behind him: Trent Grisham.

Among players 23-years-old and younger, Grisham is tied with Ronald Acuña Jr. and Juan Soto at 0.6 WAR. He doesn’t have the gaudy slash line Tatis has posted this year, but his overall offensive contribution has been 39% better than league average, just a couple points behind Acuña’s 141 wRC+. In his 51-game debut with the Brewers last year, Grisham posted a 92 wRC+. This improvement of nearly 50 points has been driven by an eight point jump in walk rate and an outburst of power.

Grisham’s plate discipline has always been a strength. While he was a Brewers prospect, he posted an excellent 15.8% walk rate, though that discerning eye didn’t always translate into low strikeout rates. Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel described his approach like this in his 2019 prospect profile:

The low batting averages he has posted have been due less to his inability to put the bat on the ball and more to an approach that is passive in excess. Grisham watches a lot of driveable pitches go by. That approach is also part of why he’s never run a season walk rate beneath 14%, and Grisham’s ability to reach base is part of why he’s still such an interesting prospect.

In 2019, it seemed like he had gotten his plate approach figured out, posting a 16.3% strikeout rate between Double-A and Triple-A. But the strikeouts returned in force after he was called up to the majors in August, jumping up to 26.2%, and his walk rate dropped to 10.9%. That elevated strikeout rate has followed him to San Diego but his walk rate has bounced back to 17.9%. Read the rest of this entry »

During this shortened season, pitching depth has become a crucial separator for contending teams. With injuries taking a greater toll on pitching staffs and hurlers still ramping up after an abbreviated summer tune-up, many teams have had to scrounge to fill all those vacancies. The Tampa Bay Rays entered the season with one of the deepest pitching staffs in baseball. They led the majors in league- and park-adjusted FIP last year, using 33 different pitchers throughout the season, and the bulk of the staff returned in 2020.

That depth will be tested after a rash of injuries decimated the Rays’ rotation. Both Charlie Morton and Yonny Chirinos were placed on the Injured List this week, Andrew Kittredge left his start yesterday after facing just two batters, and Brendan McKay was shut down from throwing at the Rays alternate training site yesterday. To make matters worse both Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow have been slow to ramp up to full strength after getting a late start to pre-season activities — Snell had lingering issues with his elbow and Glasnow tested positive for COVID-19. The current rotation depth chart for Tampa has Snell and Glasnow at the top, Ryan Yarbrough next, and a bunch of question marks after that.

Two possible candidates to step into the rotation are Trevor Richards and Jalen Beeks. Both are intriguing — Richards possesses a killer changeup but has struggled to maximize his entire repertoire. Meanwhile, Beeks has made some real improvements to his approach that gives him considerable upside if he were to join the rotation.

Beeks was acquired by the Rays from the Red Sox in mid-2018 when Boston traded him straight-up for Nathan Eovaldi. He had just made his major league debut in Boston earlier that year but struggled to make an impact during his first two seasons in the bigs. He’s posted a 4.49 FIP across more than 150 innings during 2018 and 2019. Most of those innings came as a bulk reliever used after an opener. His strikeout rate during that time was a lackluster 19.1% and his 9.3% walk rate was a bit above league average. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the ninth in a series of baseball-themed lessons we’re calling FanGraphs Prep. In light of so many parents suddenly having their school-aged kids learning from home, we hope that these units offer a thoughtfully designed, baseball-themed supplement to the schoolwork your student might already be doing. The previous units can be found here.

Overview: A short unit centered on understanding the concept of expected runs and sequencing. In one of our earlier lessons, we learned about the relationship between runs and wins. Now, we’ll take that concept a step further and learn about expected runs and how they can tell us more about a team’s true talent.

Learning Objectives:

• Use logic to determine all possible sequences of given events.
• Use algebra to solve multiple equations.
• Identify the effects of event sequencing in baseball.
• Identify and apply the Pythagorean Expectation.
• Explain the relationship between expected runs and wins.
• Explain the uses of the Pythagorean Expectation using different inputs.

Target Grade-Level: 9-10

Daily Activities:

Day 1
In baseball, sequencing is the concept that the order of events on the field have an effect on run scoring results. Sometimes this concept is referred to as cluster luck because teams that cluster hits together appear more “lucky” than teams who don’t. This concept is pretty easy to demonstrate. Say a team collects three singles and one home run in a given inning. The order of those events will lead to very different outcomes. If the team hits the three singles before the home run, it will likely result in four runs. But if the home run is hit first with the three singles following, the likely result is fewer runs, perhaps as few as one. Read the rest of this entry »

Cleveland’s extended run of success during the last half-decade has been primarily sparked by their ability to develop pitching talent seemingly out of nowhere. Their rotation has been filled with contributors who didn’t have any major prospect hype but turned into outstanding members of the rotation once they reached the majors. Names like Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar, Mike Clevinger, and Shane Bieber have impressed. Last year, Aaron Civale made his case to be the next no-name to join the list of graduates from Cleveland’s development program. This year, it looks like it’s Zach Plesac’s turn.

Plesac is even less known than Civale or any of the other names above. Kluber, Clevinger, and Bieber were all fourth-round draft picks and each crept into the bottom of the team’s prospect rankings as they made their way through Cleveland’s organization. Civale might have had the most draft capital of the bunch — he was a third-round pick in 2016. In that same draft, Cleveland selected Plesac in the 16th round, and he never received any mention on any team prospect rankings before making his debut.

Plesac actually made it to the majors before Civale and accumulated more innings than he did last year. But where Civale enjoyed great success right off the bat, Plesac struggled a bit in his first taste of the majors. He made 21 starts last year, compiling a very good 3.81 ERA that masked an ugly 4.94 FIP. His strikeout rate was well below league average (18.5%), he walked a few too many batters (8.4%), and he had a real problem with the long ball. The skills he showed off during a very successful minor league career suddenly eluded him in the big leagues. That first major league hurdle derails so many pitching careers, but Plesac worked hard to fine-tune his repertoire during the offseason to ensure that he would have another chance to find success. Read the rest of this entry »

Take a glance at the early season position player WAR leaders and you’ll find Mike Yastrzemski leading all of MLB, making his grandfather proud. Next you’ll find José Ramirez on his quest to show that last year’s struggles were just a blip. The player with the third-highest WAR in this young campaign is Mariners center fielder Kyle Lewis, who was leading the category yesterday. After a sparkling debut last September, Lewis is proving that his hot start wasn’t a fluke.

With another two yesterday, Lewis has now collected hits in all seven games this season and has strung together five multi-hit performances in a row. All told, he’s hit .448/.500/.655 this year and owns a .320/.355/.610 line in his young career. His historic September included blasting home runs in his first three major league games, becoming just the second player in history to accomplish the feat. He would go on to hit three more through the first 10 games of his career.

But that success came with some glaring red flags. He posted a 38.7% strikeout rate last year, and it is only a touch lower so far this season. His tendency to swing and miss often only confirmed the skepticism some had about his hit tool. His swinging strike rate is a bit lower this year (from 17.7% to 15.2%), and his underlying plate discipline stats look a little better — a lower overall swing rate, particularly on pitches out of the zone — but his high strikeout rate will likely follow him throughout his career. Thriving in the majors with such a high swinging strike rate is difficult but not impossible. Bryce Harper ran a 15.3% swinging strike rate last season while posting a 125 wRC+. The difference for Lewis is that many of those whiffs are coming with two strikes, driving up his strikeout rate. Harper can survive with such a high swinging strike rate because he’s aggressive early in the count but adjusts his approach with two strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the eighth in a series of baseball-themed lessons we’re calling FanGraphs Prep. In light of so many parents suddenly having their school-aged kids learning from home, we hope that these units offer a thoughtfully designed, baseball-themed supplement to the schoolwork your student might already be doing. The previous units can be found here.

Overview: A short unit centered on understanding the difference between context-neutral stats and context-specific stats. Both tell us very different things about what happens on the field. What’s the difference between them and how do we use them?

Learning Objectives:

• Identify and apply a run-expectancy matrix.
• Explain the difference between context-specific and context-neutral statistics.
• Evaluate which type of statistic to use in a given situation.

Target Grade-Level: 9-10

Daily Activities:

Day 1

At the end of 2019, Pete Alonso led all of baseball with 53 home runs. But all those home runs weren’t created equally. Thirty-one of them came with no runners on, while the remaining 22 were hit with at least one runner on base. Should those two- and three-run home runs count for more than all those solo shots? That’s the question at the center of our lesson today: Should we take the game context into account when evaluating players? Not to spoil anything, but the answer is both yes and no. Read the rest of this entry »

This is the seventh in a series of baseball-themed lessons we’re calling FanGraphs Prep. In light of so many parents suddenly having their school-aged kids learning from home, we hope is that these units offer a thoughtfully designed, baseball-themed supplement to the school work your student might already be doing. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth units can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Overview: A short unit centered on calculating rolling averages. Calculating the mean, median, and mode are fundamental concepts in math. But when we’re dealing with a dataset spread out over weeks, months, or years, simply calculating the average value for the entire dataset hides the data’s peaks and valleys. For a baseball player, those are the hot and cold streaks that everyone goes through during the season.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify and apply a rolling average.
• Explain how changing an interval affects interpretation.
• Consider the potential uses of a rolling average in baseball.

Target Grade-Level: 9-10

Daily Activities:
Day 1
Khris Davis famously hit .247 four seasons in a row from 2015–2018. If we take his total hits and total at-bats over those four seasons, it’s no surprise that his combined batting average is .247.

Read the rest of this entry »