In the midst of a season in which he won AL Rookie of the Year honors and helped the Mariners break their 21-year playoff drought, Julio Rodríguez took a star turn at the 2022 Home Run Derby. The 21-year-old phenom thrilled the crowd at Dodger Stadium by crushing 32 homers in the first round, including nine of at least 440 feet, and defeated Corey Seager, 32-24. He followed that by knocking off two-time defending champion Pete Alonso in the semifinals, 31-23, before falling to Juan Soto in the finals, 19-18. With this year’s Derby taking place at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, Rodríguez will try to become the fourth player to win the event on his home field, after the Cubs’ Ryne Sandberg (1990), the Reds’ Todd Frazier (2015), and the Nationals’ Bryce Harper (2018).

What’s more, Rodríguez, who’s seeded seventh this year on the basis of the eight participants’ home run totals through July 4, will again match up with the second-seeded Alonso in the first round — a pairing that coincidentally features the only two returning participants from last year. The stakes are high for Alonso here, as he’s still seeking to join Seattle icon Ken Griffey Jr. as the only three-time winners in Derby history. To do that, he may have to defeat another familiar opponent: sixth-seeded Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was the runner-up when Alonso won for the first time in 2019.

I’ll get to the participants shortly, but first, the format, which is along the lines of what has been used for the event since 2015, a set of changes that has done wonders for the watchability of this spectacle. The competition will be an eight-man, single elimination bracket that uses timed rounds of three minutes apiece for the first two rounds and two minutes for the final round, by which point the competitors are generally pretty gassed. Each competitor gets an additional 30-second bonus in each round, and can earn an additional 30-second bonus if he hits at least two home runs with projected distances of at least 440 feet according to Statcast.

Each player is allowed to call one 45-second timeout for use during regulation time; it can’t be used during bonus time, though each player will get a break between the regulation and bonus segments. The lower-seeded player in each round goes first, and the round will end in the equivalent of a walk-off if the higher seed surpasses his total. If two contestants are tied after the bonus time, they each get a 60-second round with no bonus time or timeouts, and if they’re still tied after that, they each get rounds of three swings apiece until a winner is decided. The winner of the Derby will take home $1 million of the $2.5 million total pot.

The Derby arrives amid a season in which home run rates are on the rebound thanks at least in part to a livelier ball — one with a lower coefficient of drag — than last year’s. Where teams averaged 1.07 home runs per game last year, the lowest mark since 2015, they’re up to 1.16 this year, right around where they were in ’16 and ’18 but still below the record-setting ’19 season (1.39 per game) and the elevated rates of ’20 and ’21. Similarly, hard-hit fly balls — those with an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher — are traveling an average of 366 feet, one foot farther than last year but one less than 2021, and nine feet below the peak in 2019. However, they don’t carry as well at T-Mobile Park, which is just 10 feet above sea level, near the water, and one of the toughest parks to hit in overall. This year, those same hard-hit fly balls are averaging 359 feet at T-Mobile, one foot less than last year and nine feet less than 2019:

The impact of T-Mobile’s home run suppression is mainly upon left-handed batters, owing to the longer distance to right-center (385 feet) than left-center (378 feet). Lefty hitters have a 94 park home run factor by our five-year methodology (six percent below league average), where righties have a 102 factor (two percent above league average). By Statcast’s three-year methodology, the split is more extreme, with 90 for lefties and 104 for righties. Thus it shouldn’t be all that surprising that all of the contestants in this year’s Derby are righties, save for switch-hitter Adley Rutschman, who figures to bat righty. On that note, here’s the full bracket:

And here’s a look at the field with some relevant stats:

The method of seeding is unsophisticated, as the players are ranked based upon how many home runs they had hit when the field was finalized on July 4, with home runs since June 15 used as a tiebreaker. By that methodology, one had to go all the way down to the tie for 63rd to include all eight participants. Home run totals are hardly the only measure of a slugger’s capability, particularly in this context, and while it’s fair to question the applicability of any of the above metrics I’ve gathered when it comes to non-game situations, it’s worth appreciating the perspective they provide on this group. I’ve gone beyond the raw totals to show how often each contestant homers per plate appearance, per batted ball [HR/ (AB – SO + SF)], and per fly ball, with their average exit velocities on flies, their average projected home run distance, and their barrel rate, which according to a 2019 study by Devan Fink correlates best with recent Derby success. I’ve also included each player’s Statcast-era total of homers with projected distances of least 440 feet, the threshold that the recent Derbies (save for the 2021 one at Coors Field) have used for the distance bonus.

Honestly, it’s not the most dazzling field. Not that they would have participated if healthy, but it’s a bummer not to have Aaron Judge or Mike Trout; the latter has never participated in the contest. We don’t get Shohei Ohtani, major league home run leader, though it’s tough to begrudge the two-way superstar some rest on the heels of what may have been the greatest month in major league history. No Ronald Acuña Jr., who’s not only in the midst of an incredible season in terms of power and speed but also hits for incredible distance; his 426-foot average on home runs is the highest among any player with more than three homers. There’s no Soto to defend his title, and no Harper, either, though that’s understandable given the latter’s less-than-full-powered recovery from offseason Tommy John surgery. Guerrero is actually the only other participant besides Rodríguez and Alonso with previous experience in this contest, and one of only three participants with 100 career homers, compared to seven of eight last year.

Still, it’s a fun enough format that it should be entertaining nonetheless. Here’s a look at the four matchups

(1) Robert vs. (8) Rutschman

The 25-year-old Robert is in the midst of his best season. He’s second in the AL in homers behind Ohtani, and has already hit more than his 2021 and ’22 seasons combined (25). That has something to do with staying healthy, as he played just 166 games in those two seasons, but he’s also barreling the ball more consistently this year. He has the second-highest barrel rate of the group, as well as the second-highest average home run distance, and until Sunday he was also second in fly ball exit velocity before slipping behind in a crowded field. Given all that, he could be a very fun contestant.

The 25-year-old Rutschman is already an All-Star, a franchise cornerstone, and a face of baseball in the making, but statistically, it’s hard to make a case as to why he’s part of this field. He’s last among the group in every category above — sometimes by a lot — except for average home run distance, where he leapfrogged from sixth to fourth on Sunday by hitting the longest home run of his career, a 461-footer into the upper deck at Target Field; in fact, that’s the longest of any of this year’s Derby participants as well. What he has going for him beyond that demonstration of potential power is the local hook. He’s a native of Portland who starred at Oregon State, and he’s easily the best choice of candidates who are either native to Oregon or Washington or went to college in those states (apologies to Michael Conforto and Jake Lamb). That should make him one of the fan favorites.

(2) Alonso vs. (7) Rodríguez

Before suffering a bone bruise and sprained left wrist when he was hit by a Charlie Morton pitch on June 7, the 28-year-old Alonso was setting a 57-homer pace. In placing him on the IL, the Mets announced, “A typical return to play for this type of injury is approximately 3–4 weeks,” but Alonso spent just the minimum 10 days sidelined. He’s homered four times since returning and is currently tied with Betts for second in the NL in homers, but has hit just .147/.267/.347 since the injury while producing an average exit velocity of 87 mph, with an 7.7% barrel rate. All of which is to say that he may not be 100%, which is a shame, because a healthy Alonso is as perfectly built for this competition as any player in the majors. One thing to note is that where Mets bench coach Dave Jauss was a big part of Alonso’s success as his pitcher in the last two Derbies, this time around Mike Friedlein, Alonso’s travel ball coach from when he was a Tampa teenager, will be throwing to him.

At 22, Rodríguez is the youngest participant for the second year in a row. His season thus far hasn’t been up to the level of his stellar rookie campaign, though the drop-off isn’t as wide as his 51-point drop in wOBA suggests. His exit velocity is 0.8 mph higher and his Best Speed exit velo — the average of his top 50% of batted balls, a better indictor of performance — has improved as well (from 103.7 mph to 104.1). That said, he’s not barreling or pulling the ball as often, he’s hitting it on the ground more, and his maximum exit velocity has fallen from 117.2 mph to 115.5. His average home run distance is the lowest in the field, and he has the highest share of homers projected for less than 400 feet (61.5%), though his ballpark may be to blame, as he’s averaging eight feet fewer on his home homers (390 feet vs. 398). Still, it’s clear from last year that he knows what he’s doing in this format, and not hard to imagine the T-Mobile crowd giving him a lift.

(3) Betts vs. (6) Guerrero

The 30-year-old Betts is the oldest and most accomplished player in this field, the career leader in homers (239), the only former MVP, and already a likely Hall of Famer (he’s 14th in JAWS among right fielders, ahead of Tony Gwynn, Ichiro Suzuki, Dave Winfield, and the elder Vladimir Guerrero). At 5-foot-9, 180 pounds, he doesn’t look like a home run hitter, but after setting a career high with 35 last year, he’s on pace for 47 this year, and just three leadoff homers away from tying the single-season record of 13. He’s not much of a distance guy; just two of his career homers have reached the magic 440-foot mark, and half his homers this year had projected distances under 400 feet, a share higher than all but Rodríguez.

The 24-year-old Guerrero, on the other hand, is a distance guy. Sixteen of his 117 career homers (13.7%) have been 440-footers or longer, edging Alonso (13.3%) for the highest rate of this group. Meanwhile, Guerrero’s 409-foot average for homers is three feet farther than any of the others, and he has the lowest share of sub-400 foot homers of the group this year (30.8%). Like Rodríguez, he isn’t having a big season with the bat, but he is hitting the ball much harder than his slash stats suggest; his .547 xSLG is 104 points higher than his SLG. In other words, he brings the thunder. Of the lower seeds, he’s got the best shot at winding up in the finals.

(4) García vs. (5) Arozarena

Not only does this matchup pit a pair of Cuban players against each other, but both García and Arozarena were teammates in the Cardinals’ minor league chain before being traded away. They remain close friends, and García is godfather to Arozarena’s daughter. If the top-seeded Robert advances out of the first round to face the winner here, that semifinals matchup will also be an all-Cuban affair.

The 30-year-old García leads the group in terms of both barrel rate and average exit velocity on fly balls. His four homers of at least 440 feet puts him in the upper half here, though note that while the 28-year-old Arozarena has none, his average distance is just one foot less than that of his pal. Though not a particularly prolific home run hitter — he’s topped out at 20 in his two full seasons — Arozarena has been hitting the ball much harder this year, with his barrel rate and other Statcast numbers career highs. And as his postseason resumé and star turn for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic have shown, he’s a player who absolutely thrives in the spotlight. That could be a big help in this contest.

If you’ve read this far, you probably want some predictions, and while I’m no expert in prognostication, my track record since joining the FanGraphs staff includes the Harper and Alonso wins in 2018-19 — the latter over Guerrero in the finals, even (not that I was going too far out on a limb either time). I haven’t done as well in recent years, however, and while my impulse is to pick Alonso based on his career resumé, instead I’m going with Guerrero over Robert in the finals. More than anything, I’m hopeful that despite the relative lack of star power, this contest will provide thrills on the level of recent Derbies.

The Joey Bart Era, such as it was, may already have ended in San Francisco. Struggling to fill the shoes of Buster Posey — admittedly, a ridiculously tall task for anyone — the 26-year-old backstop strained his groin in mid-May; by the time he was healthy enough to return, the Giants had shifted their focus to a younger catcher they were even happier with in Patrick Bailey. After finishing last season in High-A, the 24-year-old Bailey rocketed through the minors this spring, and upon arrival has hit and fielded well enough to help turn the Giants’ season around.

Recall that Posey retired abruptly after the 2021 season, at age 34. The move shocked the entire baseball world, not just the Giants, who had just won 107 games and planned to discuss retaining him upon the expiration of his nine-year, $169 million contract, whether by picking up his $22 million option or by hammering out a longer-term deal. Yet Posey, who had opted out of the 2020 season in order to spend time with his family, which had expanded to include two adopted twin daughters who had been born prematurely, felt the pull of home. Having checked every box for a Hall of Fame resumé except the padded career totals, the sad decline, and the long goodbye, he hung up his mask.

The Giants pivoted to Bart, who had looked like the heir apparent when he was taken with the second pick of the 2018 draft out of Georgia Tech. In Posey’s absence, he had done the bulk of the work behind the plate in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, but his inexperience showed, and he spent most of ’21 in the minors. While he began the 2022 campaign with promise by homering off Sandy Alcantara on Opening Day, he was optioned to Triple-A Sacramento in early June. Though he played somewhat better upon returning a month later, he finished with just a .215/.296/.364 (90 wRC+) line and an astronomical 38.5% strikeout rate in 297 PA, with -3.7 framing runs and a meager 0.6 WAR.

After making a two-inning cameo on Opening Day of this season, Bart landed on the injured list due to a mid-back strain. He additionally missed time in late April due to right groin tightness, then was diagnosed with a Grade 1 left groin strain in mid-May. In between all of the injuries, he hit just .231/.286/.295 (63 wRC+) in 84 PA; while he trimmed his strikeout rate to 25%, he walked just twice (2.4%). He started 22 of the team’s 43 games before landing on the IL a second time, with Roberto Pérez making five starts before suffering a season-ending rotator cuff tear and rookie Blake Sabol starting 16 games.

Enter the 6-foot-1, 210-pound Bailey, who was chosen with the 13th pick of the 2020 draft out of North Carolina State. He entered last season at no. 76 on our Top 100 list as a 50 FV prospect but was downgraded due to his early-season struggles at High-A Eugene, where he had finished the 2021 season. While he finished with a respectable .225/.342/.420 (113 wRC+) line with 12 homers, he missed the Top 100 — not just ours, but every major top prospect list of note throughout the industry. Baseball America, for example, ranked him 27th among Giants prospects, calling him a plus defender with “sound footwork and quick release” but also “a switch-hitter with an inconsistent approach [who] gets in trouble when he starts chasing power.” The publication saw his ceiling as that of “a defense-minded backup catcher.”

It wasn’t until last week that Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin published the Giants’ Top 49 Prospects list here. Ranking Bailey third behind Luis Matos and Kyle Harrison, they began the entry with a mea culpa: “Time to eat double crow here, as Bailey was just outside the Top 100 when he was drafted and throughout 2021 before we rounded his FV grade down during an uneven 2022. When we put together the lengthy Giants Imminent Big Leaguers piece, Bailey was not included, as we didn’t anticipate he’d spend just two weeks each at Richmond and Sacramento before the club decided to insert him as their primary big league catcher.”

Indeed, Bailey moved quickly this spring, hitting .333/.400/.481 (143 wRC+) with two homers in 60 PA in Double-A and .216/.317/.353 (61 wRC+) in 60 PA at Triple-A. He got the call when Bart hit the IL, debuted with a late-inning cameo on May 19, and went 1-for-3 in his first start the next day, singling off the Marlins’ Tanner Scott. The day after that, he clubbed a solo homer off Jesús Luzardo and added another RBI later in a 7–5 win. A week after his debut, on May 26, he went 4-for-5 with three RBI in a 15–1 rout of the Brewers; three days later, he went 3-for-5 with a double, a homer, and four RBI in a 14–4 shellacking of the Pirates.

The hits keep coming, and the Giants keep winning. Bailey is batting .302/.336/.512 for a 128 wRC+ — second on the team behind LaMonte Wade Jr.’s 139 — with five homers in 139 PA. The Giants, who were 20–23 before he was called up, are 27–17 since; they won nine straight from June 11 to 21 and soon after pulled to within 1.5 games of the NL West lead. They’ve since fallen back to third place in the division behind the Diamondbacks (50–37) and Dodgers (48–38) and are three games out at this writing, though they’re in a virtual tie with the Phillies (46–39) for the third NL Wild Card spot.

The one win during the team’s recent 1–6 skid was something of a Bailey showcase. Last Friday (June 30), in the eighth inning of the opener of a three-game series against the Mets at Citi Field, he hit a 432-foot three-run homer to center field off David Robertson, turning a 4–2 deficit into a 5–4 lead. With heat-throwing closer Camilo Doval issuing a one-out walk in the ninth, Bailey then made a perfect throw to nab pinch-runner Starling Marte attempting to steal, thus ending the Mets’ franchise-record streak of 35 straight stolen base attempts. On the next pitch, Doval struck out Brandon Nimmo to preserve the win.

“That was as good as it gets,” manager Gabe Kapler said afterwards. “That was superstar-caliber stuff.”

Getting back to our prospect team’s evaluation of Bailey: while putting a 40 present and 50 future grade on his overall defense and a 45 grade on his throwing, they noted, “He is a skilled one-knee’d receiver, great at beating the pitch to the spot in all parts of the zone, often subtly shifting his body to help him receive borderline pitches with strike-stealing stillness.” The numbers back this up; by FanGraphs’ measure, Bailey is 4.8 runs above average in framing in just 302 innings behind the plate, and by Statcast’s measure, he’s four runs above average. He’s done a great job against the running game, with pop times to second base averaging 1.87 seconds. He’s thrown out 12 out of 31 stolen base attempts for a 39% success rate, nearly double the league average of 20%; Statcast rates him as two runs above average in that department, but one run below average in blocking.

On the offensive side, while Bailey hit well from both sides of the plate in college, he struggled mightily against lefthanders in the minors, albeit in a comparatively small sample, an average of less than 50 PA per year. “A natural righty, he viewed the splits as being in part because of a lack of opportunity — he had just 61 at-bats against lefties last year — and made adjustments this spring to his swing and approach,” wrote NBC Sports’ Alex Pavlovic. “The Giants sent Bailey off to Double-A with a plan to spend more time on his right-handed swing during batting practice since he won’t get as many opportunities in games.”

The practice seems to be paying off, because Bailey has not only been effective against lefties within a very small sample, but he’s also put up insane numbers thanks to a BABIP that’s nearly double what it was in the minors — and quite unsustainable. Those have propped up a righty performance that’s slightly above the league average for a catcher (86 wRC+) but hardly exceptional, with strikeout and walk rates that rate as concerns.

Contact-wise, Bailey’s got enough total batted ball events that he’s past the point where the numbers start to stabilize. While the individual platoon splits haven’t entirely reached that point, his actual numbers from both sides are close to his expected numbers — and quite robust:

Bailey really is hitting the ball much harder from the right side of the plate, not that anyone should expect him to maintain Rogers Hornsby’s 1924 numbers.

Getting back to the walk and strikeout stuff: Bailey’s rates are out of balance, but it’s not as though his 44.7% swing rate, 29.1% chase rate, or 9.9% swinging-strike rate stand out as egregious or as marks that can’t be attached to reasonable production. Consider, for example, this list of players who are within 0.2 percentage points of his overall swing rate, two points of his chase rate, and one point of his swinging-strike rate:

Those are largely productive hitters, and the biggest difference seems to be that they’re taking fewer called strikes than Bailey en route to more balanced walk and strikeout rates. But again, it’s not like he is extraordinarily passive or aggressive. Note his -1 run rating in the Statcast shadow zone; he’s taking slightly more pitches in that zone than the league average (52% to 47%) and slightly more than average in the heart of the zone (31% to 28%) as well:

Anyway, for now as he’s making his way around the majors for the first six weeks of his career, Bailey has been exceptionally productive. I would caution that while he appears to have taken a significant leap forward from his minor league stats and pre-2023 scouting profile, the Posey comparisons he’s drawn — comparisons to a franchise pillar and future Hall of Famer (seriously, fight me) who began his career by winning NL Rookie of the Year honors in 2010 — are over the top. “Hey, let’s pump the brakes a little bit,” said Kapler in response to that line of discussion prior to Bailey’s big game in New York. “It’s a month into his career. Let’s let things unfold.”

As for what this means for Bart, he hasn’t exactly been Pipped out of a job given his struggles, but it’s tough to see him getting it back. For the near future, he may be blocked by Sabol, a Rule 5 pick from the Pirates who’s hitting .251/.313/.438 (104 wRC+) and putting up decent defensive numbers while splitting time between catching (26 starts and a total of 228 innings) and left field (183.2 innings). With his versatility, the Giants could carry three catchers, but doing so only to have Bart sit on the bench instead of working to improve at Sacramento probably isn’t in his best interest. For the longer term, he may be a change-of-scenery candidate — a player whose value is currently at the lower end of its range but one who was previously judged to have the makings of an everyday catcher, who has fewer than 500 PA under his belt, and who still has five years of club control remaining. If he doesn’t get another look in San Francisco, somebody out there will give him a shot.

As the Giants approach the August 1 trade deadline, it will be interesting to see if Bart’s name comes up as they shop to fill their needs. In the meantime, we should probably expect Bailey to cool off and should hope that folks cool it with the Posey comparisons; he casts a long enough shadow over the Giants’ organization as it is. Nonetheless, it’s exciting for any rookie to arrive, put his claim on a starting spot, and help turn his team’s fortunes. Let’s see where Bailey goes with this next.

Mookie Betts ended June the way he began it, by leading off the Dodgers’ half of the first inning with a homer, then adding another later on as one of his three additional hits. He bookended his month by doing so against the Yankees in Los Angeles on June 2, then against the Royals in Kansas City on June 30. Along the way, he added an additional five homers, boosting his season total to 22 (he hit his 23rd on Tuesday night against the Pirates), and he’s remained hot as July has begun. Not surprisingly, he’ll be the National League’s starting lineup in next week’s All-Star Game.

Betts has been on a leadoff homer binge this season. Just past the midway point, he’s hit nine already, including five in June, and three in an eight-day span as the month ended:

Betts’ total to date ties him for ninth on the single-season leaderboard, though he’s just four homers shy of the record, which was challenged by Jose Altuve last year, when he fell one short:

You’ll note that all but one of those 13 seasons has taken place in the Wild Card era (1995 onward), and over half of them have occurred in what we might call the Statcast era (2015 onward). Those high concentrations have plenty to do with the higher home run rates of recent seasons, and they also owe plenty to teams’ increasing willingness to bat power hitters first. Who doesn’t find the possibility of a quick 1–0 lead tantalizing? Read the rest of this entry »

From the time he signed a one-year deal with the Royals in late January, it appeared highly likely that Aroldis Chapman’s stay in Kansas City wouldn’t be long. Either he would continue last season’s slide into irrelevance and get his walking papers once the team decided he was more trouble than he was worth, or he would pitch well enough to make himself a viable midseason trade candidate. He ended up pitching his way into the latter route; on Friday, he was dealt to the Rangers in exchange for two young players, 25-year-old lefty Cole Ragans and 17-year-old outfielder Roni Cabrera.

The 35-year-old Chapman was an All-Star as recently as 2021 with the Yankees, but his career, which had survived a 2016 suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy, began accelerating downhill with increasing speed in June of that season. In a nine-game span, from June 10 through July 4, he allowed 15 runs and walked nine in 5.2 innings, blowing three saves. He struggled with his release point and missed time due to elbow inflammation but more or less maintained his hold on the closer spot for the rest of the season, though he finished with a 3.99 FIP (then a career worst) and a 3.36 ERA (his worst mark since 2011). He lost the closer job for good in mid-May of last season, when he went on the injured list for Achilles tendinitis, incurred the team’s wrath by missing three weeks due to a tattoo-induced infection in his leg (one that introduced the phrase “veritable moat of pus” into the lexicon), finished with ugly career-worst numbers (4.46 ERA, 4.57 FIP, -0.2 WAR), and burned his final bridge in the Bronx by skipping a mandatory workout before the Division Series.

Particularly when coupled with his 2021 troubles and past history, that drama no doubt cooled the market for Chapman. During the winter, seven relievers netted deals with average annual values of at least $9 million, including non-closers such as Rafael Montero and Robert Suarez and post-prime closers such as David Robertson and Craig Kimbrel; more than a dozen received multiyear deals. Chapman, though, could only secure a guarantee of $3.75 million over a single season. He did get some incentives in the deal: $312,500 for reaching thresholds of 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55 games, and another $312,500 for reaching thresholds of 12, 16, 20, 24, 28, 32, 36, and 40 games finished. The Rangers will be responsible for those bonuses, as well as about $1.875 million in remaining salary. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s tough not to pick on the Cardinals these days. Last season, they won 93 games and took the NL Central title with a team that combined strong offense, exceptional defense — long a St. Louis tradition — and good pitching; it was their 15th straight season above .500 and fourth in a row reaching the postseason. This year, however, they’ve spent time as the NL’s worst team, and while they’re now merely the third-worst, at 33-46 they’re going nowhere and impressing nobody.

A big and perhaps undersold part of the Cardinals’ problem is the collapse of their vaunted defense, which has often featured five players — first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, third baseman Nolan Arenado, outfielder Tyler O’Neill, and multiposition regulars Brendan Donovan and Tommy Edman — who won Gold Gloves in either 2021 or ’22. Manager Oli Marmol has been tasked with shoehorning hot-hitting youngsters Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker into the lineup at comparatively unfamiliar positions, as both are blocked by Arenado at third base, their primary position in the minors, and between injuries and offensive issues, lately Edman has been patrolling center field instead of the middle infield. Backing a pitching staff that doesn’t miss enough bats — their 21.1% strikeout rate is the majors’ fifth-worst — it’s all collapsed into an unhappy mess.

Given that context it’s less than surprising that the Cardinals show up as one of the majors’ worst defensive teams using the methodology I rolled out on Thursday to illustrate the best. For that exercise, I sought to find a consensus from among several major defensive metrics, namely Defensive Runs Saved, Ultimate Zone Rating, and Statcast’s Runs Prevented (which I’m calling Runs Above Average because their site and ours use the abbreviation RAA) as well as our catcher framing metric (hereafter abbreviated as FRM, as on our stat pages), and Statcast’s catching metrics for framing, blocking, and throwing (which I’ve combine into the abbreviation CRAA). Each of those has different methodologies, and they produce varying spreads in runs from top to bottom that owe something to what they don’t measure as well as how much regression is built into their systems. Pitchers don’t have UZRs or RAAs, for example, and the catching numbers are set off in their own categories rather than included in UZR and RAA. I’ve accounted for the varying spreads, which range from 86 runs in DRS (from 42 to -44) to 25.6 runs in FRM (from 13.8 to -11.8), by using standard deviation scores (z-scores), which measure how many standard deviations each team is from the league average in each category. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers haven’t played in the postseason since 2016 (and haven’t even finished above .500 since then), but they’ve been atop the AL West for almost the entire season and are now 49–31, with a six-game lead over both the Angels and Astros. They own the majors’ largest run differential (+160) as well as its most potent offense (5.98 runs per game), and thanks to a revamped pitching staff, they’re third in run prevention as well (3.98 per game).

An underrated part of that run prevention is the team’s defense. By my evaluation of a handful of the major defensive metrics — Defensive Runs Saved, Ultimate Zone Rating, our catcher framing metric (hereafter abbreviated as FRM, as it is on our stat pages), and Statcast’s Runs Prevented (which I’ll call Runs Above Average because their site and ours use the abbreviation RAA) and catching metrics for framing, blocking, and throwing (which I’ll combine into the abbreviation CRAA) — the Rangers rate as the majors’ second-best defensive team thus far this season. The Brewers, who are in the midst of a dogfight for first place in the NL Central, are the only team ahead of them.

I’ll explain the methodology behind this conclusion below, but first a bit more about the Rangers. With Jacob deGrom sidelined after just six starts due to a UCL tear that resulted in Tommy John surgery, the team’s pitching staff has the 13th-lowest strikeout rate in the majors (22.2%), but it also has the third-lowest BABIP (.274), in large part thanks to the team’s fielders (the pitchers haven’t been especially good at preventing hard contact). Second baseman Marcus Semien is the only past Gold Glove winner of the bunch, but he’s one of five Rangers defenders with at least 5 DRS thus far, along with first baseman Nathaniel Lowe, outfielder Travis Jankowski, right fielder Adolis García, and catcher Jonah Heim. Lowe, Semien, and center fielder Leody Taveras all have at least 4 RAA, and Heim is 3.7 runs above average in FRAM and +6 in CRAA.

Not all of the metrics are as favorable for the aforementioned players, but it’s worth noting that of the 10 Rangers with the most defensive innings played at a single position, the only negative run ratings are those of shortstop Corey Seager and left fielder Robbie Grossman (both -2 RAA) and Lowe (-2.6 UZR); every other Ranger with at least 161.1 innings at a position rates as average or better. To be fair, 161.1 innings is still a small sample, and for that matter, even the 697.1 innings of Semien at second is less than ideal for a full evaluation, though we can feel better that his DRS, UZR and RAA don’t wildly contradict each other. Particularly at this stage of the season, with teams having played 78–83 games, it’s better to bear in mind the range of values reflected in an individual’s fielding metrics rather than focusing on a single one. To return to Semien: his 6 DRS and 5 RAA are contrasted by his 0.8 UZR; it’s not a matter of which one is “right” so much as it is understanding that he shows up somewhere along the spectrum from slightly above average to solidly above average.

Given all of this alphabet soup dished out in small servings, I set out to look at team defense by aggregating the aforementioned metrics, which reflect differing methodologies and produce varying spreads in runs from top to bottom that owe something to what they don’t measure as well as how much regression is built into their systems. Pitchers don’t have UZRs or RAAs, for example, and the catching numbers are set off in their own categories rather than included in UZR and RAA. I’ve accounted for the varying spreads, which range from 86 runs in DRS (from 42 to -44) to 25.6 runs in FRM (from 13.8 to -11.8), by using standard deviation scores (z-scores), which measure how many standard deviations each team is from the league average in each category. I don’t proclaim this to be a bulletproof methodology so much as a good point of entry into a broad topic. The Rangers, who entered Wednesday (the cutoff for all of the data below) tied with the Blue Jays for the major league lead with 42 DRS, score 1.86 in that category but “only” 1.37 in UZR and 1.13 in RAA (13.4 runs in the former, 10 in the latter, both fourth in the majors), and so on. Read the rest of this entry »

2:00	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! I’m back from my annual foray to Cape Cod and at my usual battle station for the Tuesday chat.

2:01	Jay Jaffe: I just published a piece on Jordan Walker’s latest hitting streak and what’s changed (and hasn’t) since his return from Triple-A. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/jordan-walker-tries-to-get-off-the-ground/

2:02	Jay Jaffe: Yesterday, I took a look at the debut of the Padres’ Matt Waldron, the first pitcher to throw a knuckleball in a major league game since Mickey Jannis in 2021 https://blogs.fangraphs.com/matt-waldron-brought-the-knuckleball-back-…

2:02	Jay Jaffe: Current listening: Sparks, since I’m seeing them at the Beacon Theater tonight.

2:02	Jay Jaffe: And now, on with the show

Read the rest of this entry »

Say this for Jordan Walker: He knows how to put together a hitting streak. The 21-year-old rookie has only played in 39 major league games, and in that brief amount of time has recorded two streaks — a career-opening 12-gamer and now a 15-gamer — that together account for more than two-thirds of that run. His bat has suddenly become a bright spot in an otherwise frustrating season for the Cardinals.

Indeed, the reigning NL Central champions remain a hot mess despite winning five of their last seven games and salvaging a split in the London Series against the Cubs after being spanked 9–1 in the opener. The Cardinals have nonetheless been worse in June (7–13) than May (15–13), producing their lowest monthly rate of scoring runs (4.05 per game) along with their highest rate of runs allowed (4.88 per game), and falling from five games out of first place to 8.5 back. That’s hardly been Walker’s fault, though.

Recall that Walker, who ranked 12th on our 2023 Top 100 Prospects list, hit his way onto the roster in spring training, bypassing Triple-A Memphis, and opened the season as the regular right fielder, a situation that was somewhat surprising given the team’s apparent outfield depth. The move guaranteed that Tyler O’Neill, Dylan Carlson, and Lars Nootbaar would all get less playing time than expected — not the worst thing in the world given the subpar performances of the first two last year. The presence of fellow rookie Alec Burleson only added to the crunch. Yet Walker turned heads by collecting hits in each of his first 12 games, batting .319/.360/.489.

Once the hitting streak ended, however, Walker didn’t get a very long leash as the league adjusted. He went just 5-for-26 over his next eight games, four of which featured multiple strikeouts. Meanwhile, his poor jumps and bad throwing decisions served to remind that he was still a work in progress on defense as well; a converted third baseman, he had just 51 previous professional games in the outfield, including in last year’s Arizona Fall League. Still, it felt odd when, on April 26, the Cardinals optioned him to Memphis, with club president John Mozeliak deciding that the outfield of the 9–15 team was suddenly too crowded. “[G]uys just aren’t getting into rhythm, [with their] expected playing time,” he told reporters, adding that he and manager Oli Marmol envisioned less playing time for the rookie in the near future and figured it made little sense for him to idle on the bench. More understandable was the team’s desire for Walker to work on his approach and hit the ball in the air more often to take advantage of his 70-grade raw power. Read the rest of this entry »

If not as momentous as the rediscovery of the coelacanth after a 65-million-year absence, the return of the knuckleball to Major League Baseball was still an occasion worth noting. On Saturday, the Padres recalled Matt Waldron to make a spot start, and the 26-year-old righty became the first pitcher to throw a knuckleball in a regular season game since the Orioles’ Mickey Jannis in 2021.

Waldron threw only 13 knucklers from among his 62 pitches, mixing the fluttering pitch into a more standard arsenal, but he got good results with the offering. All told, he performed respectably, allowing just two runs — both via solo homers off his four-seam fastball — in 4.2 innings to the Nationals. Unfortunately, the Padres didn’t score at all, and fell 2–0.

Matt Waldron, Knuckleball. ? pic.twitter.com/kpmpuXQKzB

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 25, 2023

Where the knuckleball generally had at least one or two standard-bearers with secure spots in the majors at any time from the mid-1960s up through 2017, the pitch has become an endangered species in recent years, as I’ve noted a few times in this space. Brothers Phil Niekro (who pitched in the majors from 1964 to ’87) and Joe Niekro (1967–88), Wilbur Wood (1961–78), and reliever Hoyt Wilhelm (1952–72) all thrived with the pitch (some for longer than others), with the elder Niekro and Wilhelm both making the Hall of Fame. Charlie Hough (1970–94), Tom Candiotti (1983–99), and Tim Wakefield (1992–93, ’95–2011) became staples of the rotation if not stars, and Steve Sparks (1995–96, ’98–2004) and Dennis Springer (1995–2002) found sporadic success. R.A. Dickey took the baton from Wakefield and gave the knuckleball its last burst of prominence. He turned to the pitch in 2008 after finding little success during his sporadic appearances in the majors from ’01 to ’06, finally solidified a spot in the majors in 2010, and two years later became the first knuckleballer to win a Cy Young Award; that year, he was the only true pitcher to throw a single knuckleball in the majors according to either PITCHf/x or Pitch Info.

Dickey lasted until 2017, when he was 42 years old, but aside from him, every knuckleballer who came and went more or less hung around on the major league margins. Steven Wright, who debuted for the Red Sox in 2013, spent parts of seven seasons in the majors, but a knee injury and a suspension for domestic violence limited him to 60 innings in 2018–19, the first years of the post-Dickey era. Since then, the pitch has become the province of position players pressed into mop-up duty, with Ryan Feierabend (2019 with the Blue Jays) and Jannis the only true pitchers to try it at the major league level. That they combined for just three appearances, allowing 14 runs in nine innings, only underscored the pitch’s decline in popularity.

Hence the interest in Waldron, whom Cleveland drafted out of the University of Nebraska in the 18th round in 2019, then sent to San Diego as the player to be named later in the Mike Clevinger blockbuster in November 2020. Waldron taught himself a knuckleball way back in Little League, figuring it out with twin brother Mike, who had this to say about it when interviewed on MLB’s broadcast:

“[It started] just out of curiosity… It was one of those things that you’re like, ‘Hey, that’s pretty cool. We’ll go ahead and see what we can do, throw it around.’

“It kind of became one of those fun pitches we’d throw around when we were at practice or something, just something to mess around with. To see it work at this level … it’s unbelievable, really.”

Waldron turned some heads in Padres camp throwing the knuckleball in warm-ups in 2021, and so the team encouraged him to feature the pitch, which sat in the low 80s and contrasted well with his 92–94 mph fastball, slider, and changeup. Exactly how much he threw it is unclear, but according to Baseball America, “As Waldron got more comfortable with the pitch, he pushed its usage over 70%.” He pitched to a 4.25 ERA, walking 35 and striking out 103, in 103.2 innings split between High-A Fort Wayne and Double-A San Antonio.

Unfortunately minor league pitch usage data for Waldron isn’t easy to come by, as the pitch is so rare that auto-tagging systems usually label it as a slider or changeup; check out his spin rates for the pitch, and occasionally you’d see one that’s 2,900 RPM or so instead of sitting in the 100–400 range, where he was in his most recent start for Triple-A El Paso on June 16. According to Synergy Sports, which manually tags each pitch, Waldron threw knuckleballs just 9% of the time last year while getting smoked for a 6.26 ERA in 113.2 innings split between San Antonio and El Paso. He walked 39 and struck out 96 but served up 14 homers, including 12 in just 69.1 innings for El Paso. This year, he was up to 22% in his knuckleball usage; based on various reports and his own comments, he was throwing it more often to lefties than righties. “I use it coming out that same tunnel [as the fastball],” he told reporters.

For as sound as his plan may be, Waldron had been rocked for a 7.02 ERA, 5.34 FIP and 11 homers in 66.2 innings when the call came. Those numbers obviously aren’t impressive, but it’s worth remembering that altitude is a significant factor in the Pacific Coast League. The Chihuahuas’ Southwest University Park sits 3,750 feet above sea level; the circuit also includes high-altitude parks in Albuquerque (5,100 feet), Reno (4,500 feet), Salt Lake City (4,230 feet), and Las Vegas (3,000 feet). Not only do batted balls carry further at such altitudes than at sea level, but knuckleballs also move less. Dickey never pitched at Coors Field (and only faced the Rockies twice) but did throw bullpens there and pitched against Triple-A Colorado Springs during his minor league years. In 2012, he explained the hazards of the knuckleball at altitude to sportswriter Dave Krieger:

“It is tougher to throw at those high altitudes because there’s not much humidity for the ball to kind of resist against. At sea level… if I throw a mediocre knuckleball, well, it’s still going to move, it just might not move as sharply or as much. If I throw a mediocre knuckleball in Colorado, it’s going to be a b.p. (batting practice) fastball right down the middle that I’m going to have to either dodge or I’m going to just put my glove up for the umpire to throw me another ball because that one just went 450 feet.

Thus the conditions make it tough to take Waldron’s numbers at face value, which the Padres surely understand when they turned to him for a spot start in place of Michael Wacha; he’s been the team’s best pitcher this year, with a 2.90 ERA and 3.78 FIP, but has also been notoriously fragile throughout his career and is currently dealing with a bout of shoulder fatigue. Waldron’s stay wasn’t expected to be a long one — and in fact, he was optioned back to El Paso on Sunday — but his outing did open some eyes.

Facing the Nationals, who rank 12th in the NL in both scoring (4.13 runs per game) and wRC+ (93), Waldron got ahead of leadoff hitter Lane Thomas using his four-seam fastball, then unveiled the knuckleball on a 1–2 pitch that Thomas fouled off; as it turned out, Thomas would be the only righty-swinger to see any of Waldron’s knucklers. Two pitches later, Waldron struck out Thomas swinging at a 93.8 mph four-seamer right down the middle. After getting Luis Garcia on a first-pitch grounder, he got ahead of switch-hitting Jeimer Candelario (who batted lefty) 0–1, then threw another knuckler, this one too low. Candelario took it for a ball, then crushed a 92.9-mph middle-middle fastball for a towering 395-foot solo homer, 107 mph off the bat, the hardest-hit ball Waldron would allow all evening. Here’s a look at the two knucklers, contrasted with the two payoff pitches:

Ouch. After the homer, Waldron recovered to strike out Joey Meneses to end the inning, using three four-seamers as well as a cutter and a slider, both of which were way outside the strike zone. He kept the knuckleball on ice until the fourth inning, after working around a leadoff single by Corey Dickerson (a lefty) in the second and serving up a solo homer to Thomas on a 92.4-mph first-pitch fastball in the third; he also issued a one-out walk to Garcia but stranded him.

In the fourth, Waldron threw back-to-back knuckleballs to Dickerson, who had fallen behind 0–1; he fouled off both, took a fastball for a ball, then grounded to shortstop on yet another knuckler. Waldron went back to the pitch for three out of the four offerings to the next batter, switch-hitter Keibert Ruiz (batting lefty), who finally grounded one to second base. Here are the floaters from that two-hitter sequence:

While it would have figured that Waldron might throw a knuckleball to lefty Dominic Smith, he didn’t need to, as Smith grounded out on an 0–2 fastball. In the fifth, righty Derek Hill grounded to short on a fastball after laying off two cutters well outside the zone. Lefty CJ Abrams, on the other hand, saw nothing but knuckleballs, flying out to right field on the fourth one.

That swinging strike had 20 inches of horizontal movement, Waldron’s highest measure of the game and one of four in double digits. Here’s a slow-motion view:

Matt Waldron, Knuckleball Movement. ?

20 Inches of Run. pic.twitter.com/oS3dce5VPd

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 25, 2023

Thomas took Waldron’s final knuckler for ball one before singling off a slider, at which point manager Bob Melvin pulled the rookie in favor of veteran lefty Tim Hill, who struck out Garcia. The Padres bullpen didn’t allow another run, but the lineup couldn’t muster any kind of heat, managing just four hits, all singles, and failing to take advantage of an additional four walks against starter Josiah Gray. The Nationals bullpen retired all 11 batters it faced, six by strikeouts.

All told, Waldron threw 27 four-seamers, 14 sliders, seven cutters and a sinker to go with his 13 knuckleballs. He got five whiffs and 10 called strikes with the four-seamer, which averaged 92.3 mph and topped out at 94.4. He got just one whiff out of seven swings via the knuckler, whose velocity ranged from 76.3 mph to 84.2 mph, as well as two called strikes; he had a 23% CSW for that pitch, compared to 37% for the fastball and 29% overall. Batters did chase three of the eight floaters he threw outside the strike zone (37.5%, and it’s worth noting that none of them escaped the reach of catcher Gary Sánchez, who was handling the pitch for the first time), but they also made contact with all five in the zone, though the only ones they put into play were the outs of Dickerson, Ruiz, and Abrams. Those three had an average exit velocity of 89.7 mph, an xBA of .137, an xSLG of .160, and an xwOBA of .125, though his overall marks — 92.2 mph exit velo, .294 xBA, .574 xSLG, .383 xwOBA — obviously weren’t as good. As his 50% hard-hit rate and 6.35 xERA attests, Waldron needs to do a better job of limiting hard contact if he’s to survive.

As for the knuckleball itself, the total of 13 that he threw on Saturday was fewer than those of seven position players who have broken it out for their mound cameos during the pitch-tracking era (2008 onward), not to mention all nine of the other pitchers who did so. Excluding the bastard sons of Wade Boggs, here’s how they stack up:

Waldron’s knuckler rates as the fastest in terms of average velocity, faster even than Dickey’s “angry knuckleball.” It’s mid-pack in terms of vertical movement, but tops in terms of horizontal movement. Unfortunately, I don’t have much in the way of direct comparisons for spin rate, since it wasn’t until Statcast switched to the Hawkeye cameras in 2020 that spin could be measured directly; Waldron’s knucklers averaged 295 RPM, which is lower than Jannis’ average of 407 but about double the ideal of 150, which translates into about one to one and half rotations from the mound to the plate. Neither Stuff+ nor PitchingBot even scored Waldron’s knuckleball, though both models really liked his slider (whose usage rate matches up with Gameday, which is to say the pitches aren’t being conflated), and PitchingBot found his other pitches to be at least average, though it didn’t score the cutter. Stuff+ saw his other pitches as pedestrian, which I believe better matches up with the general scouting perception. Small-sample caveats abound:

All told, I think it’s fair to say that Waldron demonstrated some promise with the way he used the knuckleball to keep hitters off balance, but that unless he can hone his arsenal and find a way to miss more bats, he’s likely destined to remain on the fringe of the majors rather than securing a regular job. I would absolutely love to be wrong about that, because even in his one-night cameo, Waldron’s knuckleball was a most welcome sight.

The A’s have spent most of this season as the laughingstocks of the majors. Stripped of their most talented players as ownership focused on sneaking out of Oakland, they carried a .207 winning percentage into June, putting them on pace to beat the 1962 Mets’ modern-day record of 120 losses. With their recent seven-game winning streak — remarkably timed to coincide with the Nevada state senate debating and finally approving a bill to build a stadium on the Las Vegas strip, all but sealing their fate in Oakland — they’ve edged above what we might call the Throneberry Line. All the while, the Royals, losers of nine straight and 12 out of their last 13, have actually slipped below them in terms of winning percentage, .265 (18–50) to .267 (19–52).

This actually isn’t the first time the Royals have had a worse record than the A’s this year; Oakland won its first and fourth games of the season, whereas Kansas City lost its first and started 1–6. It took until April 8 for the Royals (3–6) to move ahead of the A’s (2–6). Since then, the two teams have spent a few days with the same record and winning percentage — on April 21 (4–16, .200), April 24 (5–18, .217) and May 6 (8–26, .235) — but the Royals had never been worse than the A’s until this week:

Where the plight of the A’s has captured national attention, that of the Royals has largely evaded it. That’s largely because the team’s ownership isn’t in the process of trying to relocate the franchise, which isn’t to say it doesn’t want a new stadium. But entering Friday, Kansas City was in a virtual tie for the sixth-worst winning percentage of any team since 1901 and is playing at a pace that would produce a 43–119 record, which would tie the 2003 Tigers for the second-highest total of losses in a season, behind only the 1962 Mets’ 120. Even if the Royals can’t catch the Mets, they’ll have to play much better ball to avoid surpassing the franchise record of 106 losses, set in 2005. Read the rest of this entry »