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Back in the spring, when the existence of the 2022 season — or at least one that started on time and ran 162 games — was anything but a certainty due to the owners’ lockout, I embarked on an open-ended Hall of Fame-related project centered around starting pitchers. Having already taken a swing at modernizing JAWS to better account for the changes in starter workloads that have occurred over the past century and a half, I turned my focus to the demographic disparities among enshrined starters, and examined the cream of the crop still outside the Hall, getting as far as those born in the 1950s.

You’re forgiven if this all seems pretty hazy or even unfamiliar, and perhaps confused as to why I’m bringing this up now. With the season in its final week but containing only minimal drama as far as the races go (pour one out for Team Entropy), it struck me that it might be my last chance to delve into the topic until after the playoffs, and so here we are.

I intended to continue this Cooperstown Notebook series during the season, particularly in light of the late-April announcement of the Hall reconfiguring its Era Committee process yet again. Up for election in December will be players on the Contemporary Baseball ballot, defined as those who made their greatest impact from 1980 to the present day. The eight-candidate ballot, which will be announced in November, will almost certainly include the obvious candidates who fell off recent writers’ ballots, namely Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, and Fred McGriff. It will also likely include the holdovers who received significant support on the 2020 Modern Baseball ballot and have been classified as belonging to this period, namely Dwight Evans and Lou Whitaker (Dave Parker and Steve Garvey belong to the Classic Baseball period, next up in December 2024).

As for holdovers from the 2019 Today’s Game ballot (the one from which Lee Smith and Harold Baines were elected), all of them except Lou Piniella (who’s now qualified for the Contemporary Baseball Managers, Umpires, and Executives ballot, to be voted upon in December 2023) received “fewer than five votes” out of 16 that year. From that group, Orel Hershiser was one of two pitchers in my review of pitchers born in the 1950s who received my recommendation in light of S-JAWS, though that hardly guarantees him another ballot appearance. Dave Stieb, who’s never graced an Era Committee ballot after going one-and-done on the writers’ ballot in 2004, is the other hurler from that period whose case merits a closer look in light of S-JAWS, but I’m not holding my breath that he’ll be on there.

To backtrack a bit, I fell down this rabbit hole because as things stand only nine starting pitchers born in 1950 or later are enshrined. As a percentage of pitchers with at least 2,000 innings — a practical cutoff but not an absolute one (Dizzy Dean is the only enshrined starter from the NL, AL, and bygone white leagues with fewer) — that’s far lower than what came before:

Why should we care about this demographic dip? Mainly because we want to equitably represent more recent eras, though doing so requires an understanding that our standards need some tweaking to reflect the evolution of the starting pitcher. While voters have moved past the 300-wins-or-bust mentality by electing Bert Blyleven, Roy Halladay, Pedro Martinez, Jack Morris, Mike Mussina, and John Smoltz along with 300-winners Tom Glavine, Randy Johnson, and Greg Maddux, there are additional candidates from the not-too-distant past who are worthy of recognition, pitchers who may not be significantly better than the average enshrinee (the original stated goal of the JAWS project) but who would hardly be out of place within the broader spectrum of those already honored.

This shouldn’t be taken as a literal call for current and future voters to open the floodgates and elect players to the point that the percentages above are dead even; particularly with the Era Committee reconfigurations, electing anybody might prove to be a tall task. I’m hopeful that eventually we can boost the rates of election for pitchers of more recent vintage while keeping in mind that the somewhat looser standards make it apparent that a few guys from the more ancient eras look even stronger in the light of S-JAWS than in JAWS.

Like JAWS, S-JAWS — which is now the default at Baseball Reference’s Starting Pitcher page — uses an average of a pitcher’s career and peak WAR (best seven seasons at large) for comparisons to the averages of all Hall of Fame pitchers. The idea behind S-JAWS is to reduce the skewing caused by the impact of 19th century and dead-ball era pitchers, some of whom topped 400, 500, or even 600 innings in a season on multiple occasions. I’ve chosen to do this by prorating the peak-component credit for any heavy-workload season to a maximum of 250 innings, a level that the current and recent BBWAA candidates rarely reached, and only one active pitcher (Justin Verlander) has, albeit by a single inning a decade ago. The various emphases on pitch counts, innings limits, and times through the order make it unlikely we’ll see such levels again, at least on a consistent basis, and while we can debate, lament, and discuss whether it’s worth trying to reverse that trend, that’s not my focus. Given the current trends in the game regarding starting pitcher usage, it might make more sense 5-10 years from now to look at candidates on a 200-225 inning basis, but for now this is a reasonable place to start the adjustments.

In this piece I breezed through the pre-1900, 1900-29, and 1930-49 periods to identify the starters among the top 100 in S-JAWS who are outside the Hall, and here I went through those born in the 1950-59 period. At last we get to the 1960-69 group, which is better represented within the Hall than the decades on either side because that period produced a bumper crop of very good hurlers. Here are the ones who fall within the top 100, meaning with an S-JAWS of 43.3 or higher:

The self-inflicted wounds of Clemens and Schilling aside, the best of this group is already in Cooperstown, and I don’t need to rehash their credentials here. Of the rest, some might have gotten there with better staying power; of the pitchers I’m highlighting here, only Brown and Finley reached 3,000 innings, a level that all starters who have been elected since Sandy Koufax (1972) reached save for Halladay and Martinez.

Because of the way I designed S-JAWS, none of the six pitchers up for discussion from this batch lose much off their peak scores, but they climb in the rankings. Here’s a look at how things changed for the half-dozen I’m covering here, along with a few callbacks from previous installments:

I’ll refer back to these. As I did in the Fifties installment, I’ll start at the bottom, which isn’t to say that I’m arguing on behalf of all of these pitchers.

Dwight Gooden

Of the pitchers here, Gooden is the one who burned most brightly and seemed destined for Cooperstown. A year after being the fifth pick out of Tampa’s Hillsborough High School in the 1982 draft, the 18-year-old fireballer struck out 300 in 190 innings at A-level Lynchburg. In 1984, the 19-year-old Gooden arrived on the major league scene with a rising fastball that could reach 100 mph, and a knee-buckling curveball so good his teammates dubbed it Lord Charles instead of the common Uncle Charlie. The kid set a rookie record with a league-leading 276 strikeouts in 218 innings, became the youngest All-Star ever, won NL Rookie of the Year honors, finished second in the NL Cy Young voting behind Rick Sutcliffe (!) and earned the nickname Doctor K. Then in 1985 he turned in a season for the ages, going 24-4, with a 1.53 ERA (229 ERA+) and 268 strikeouts in 276.2 innings, good for the NL Cy Young, the pitchers’ Triple Crown (league lead in wins, strikeouts, and ERA), and 13.3 WAR (12.2 pitching, 1.1 offense) — a single-season total that stands as the highest of any pitcher in the live-ball era.

It was mostly downhill from those lofty heights. Though he helped the Mets to a World Championship in 1986, Gooden lost the sizzle on his mid-90s fastball and wasn’t nearly as dominant (17-6, 2.84 ERA, 4.3 WAR). Prior to the start of 1987 season, he went into a drug rehabilitation program and missed the Mets’ first 50 games; decades later, he admitted that he missed the Mets’ World Series parade because he was high in a drug dealer’s apartment. He returned from rehab to post a few more good years with the Mets, helping them to the NL East title in 1988 (18-9, 3.19 ERA) while making his fourth and final All-Star team, but he produced just a 103 ERA+ and a total of 23.1 WAR for the 1987-94 span. Shoulder problems stemming from overuse took their toll, as did continued cocaine and alcohol problems. While serving a 60-day suspension for testing positive for cocaine in 1994, he tested positive again and was suspended for the entire ’95 season.

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner offered Gooden a chance at redemption once the pitcher’s suspension ended, and he responded with a solid season that included a no-hitter and 2.6 WAR, but he was left off the postseason roster as the team won its first World Series since 1978. He bounced around for a few more years, relying on luck and guile more than talent — my pal Nick Stone nicknamed him “Granny Gooden” because watching him pitch was “like watching an elderly woman navigate an icy staircase” — with stops in Cleveland, Houston, and Tampa Bay before a return to the Bronx in 2000.

Like former teammate Darryl Strawberry, Gooden’s occasional moments of glory mainly served to remind us — and him — of what might have been. He doesn’t gain much ground in the move to S-JAWS, particularly relative to the other pitchers here, and his 0-4, 3.97 ERA record in the postseason doesn’t help his cause. His recovery continues to be worth rooting for, however.

Chuck Finley

Aside from Nolan Ryan, no pitcher is as closely associated with the history of the California/Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels as Finley, the franchise leader in wins (165), innings (2,675), pitching WAR (52.0), and a whole bunch of other categories. The Halos tried doubly hard to get the 6-foot-6 southpaw, drafting him in the 15th round in 1984, and again as the fourth pick in the following January’s secondary draft. He threw just 41 innings in the minors before being called up to join the bullpen of the ill-fated 1986 AL West champions.

In 1988, Finley finally nailed down a rotation spot, beginning a 12-year run as the team’s mainstay, during which he posted a 3.70 ERA (119 ERA+) while averaging 212 innings and 4.3 WAR. He ranked in the AL top 10 in WAR five times in that span, made four All-Star teams, and topped 7.0 WAR three times; over that stretch, only Clemens, Maddux, Cone, and Johnson outproduced his 51.5 WAR, while Brown tied him. His career-high 7.7 WAR ranked second in the league in 1990 as he went 18-9 with a 2.40 ERA, but he finished a distant seventh in the Cy Young voting. He never led the league in Ks, but ranked in the top 10 in 10 out of 12 seasons from 1989-2000, and in the top five in seven out of eight from ’93-2000.

Following the 1999 season, Finley left the Angels for Cleveland on a three-year, $25 million deal, which he inaugurated with his fifth and final All-Star season (16-11 4.17 ERA, 4.3 WAR); alas, the club missed the playoffs for the first time in six years. Injuries limited him to 22 starts and an ugly 5.54 ERA in 2001, and he pitched just one more year, a season that was overshadowed by wife Tawny Kitaen (of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” video fame) being arrested for spousal abuse for attacking him while driving the night before he was scheduled to make his season debut. Traded to St. Louis late in the year, he finished strong and helped the Cardinals win the NL Central, but chose to walk away from his next potential payday at age 39.

Finley’s better than most people remember, but he lacks any kind of hook — a Cy Young Award, a big postseason, a signature accomplishment — that would elevate his Hall of Fame case beyond what his very respectable but hardly overwhelming S-JAWS tells us. Hershiser is below Finley in the rankings, but with his 1988 achievements (NL Cy Young, record-setting scoreless streak, and epic postseason run), three other top-five Cy Young finishes, and additional October success, he’s a much more viable, and worthy, candidate for election.

Kevin Appier

An intense competitor with an unorthodox delivery and a killer forkball and slider to complement his fastball, Appier was a first-round pick by the Royals in 1987. He debuted with the club two years later, when Saberhagen was en route to his second Cy Young, and inherited the mantle of staff ace during the team’s last gasp at competitive relevance for a generation. From 1990-93, he finished among the AL’s top four in ERA three times, and from ’90-97, he ranked among the league’s top 10 in WAR seven times; his total of 46.4 (5.8 per year) trailed only Clemens and Maddux. His best season was 1993, when he led the AL with a 2.56 ERA and 9.3 WAR, but finished third in the AL Cy Young voting; his 18-8 record was no match for Jack McDowell’s 22-10 with a 3.37 ERA and 4.4 WAR (ugh). He made just one All-Star team during this stretch, but certainly deserved more.

A torn labrum cost Appier most of 1998 and a good chunk of his velocity, requiring him to get by on finesse and guile thereafter. The Royals traded him to the A’s in mid-1999, and he helped the team to the AL West title the following season while going 15-11 with a 4.52 ERA (104 ERA+). He parlayed that into a four-year, $42 million deal with the defending NL champion Mets, but while “Ape” pitched well in the Big Apple (3.57 ERA, 3.5 WAR), he was traded to the Angels for injured slugger Mo Vaughn the following winter.

Appier turned in a solid season for the Angels (14-12, 3.92 ERA, 1.8 WAR) in 2002, though he was roughed up in the postseason even as the team won the World Series. He struggled the following season due to a torn flexor tendon, however, and drew his release in late July; the Royals picked him up, and he finished out his contract but missed most of 2004, his age-36 season, due to elbow surgery. Comeback attempts in the next two seasons, with Kansas City and Seattle, didn’t pan out.

Had it not been for injuries, Appier might have had a real shot at Cooperstown, but the what-ifs only go so far. He deserved much more recognition during what was a very good career, but with just one All-Star appearance, a single season receiving Cy Young votes, and an 0-2, 5.34 ERA record in the postseason, he doesn’t have anything that would give his Hall case the traction it would need.

Bret Saberhagen

Though he wasn’t Gooden-level, Saberhagen was a pitching prodigy in his own right. A 19th-round pick out of Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda, California in 1982, he spent just one season in the minors before debuting with the Royals one week shy of his 20th birthday, showing up with a 94 mph fastball, a great changeup, and what teammate and future manager John Wathan would call “the curveball of a lifetime.”

Saberhagen’s solid performance helped win a weak AL West that season, but it was his 20-6, 2.87 ERA performance the following year that had the greater impact. Leading a young rotation to another division title, he garnered his first Cy Young award, topped the circuit with 7.1 WAR, and won World Series MVP honors on the strength of complete-game victories in Games 3 and 7 against the Cardinals, the latter a shutout that helped finish an umpire-aided comeback from a three-games-to-one deficit.

Saberhagen struggled the following year, (7-12, 4.15 ERA, 2.0 WAR), beginning an unfortunate pattern of strong odd-numbered years and lackluster even-numbered ones that included his first All-Star selection in 1987 and a second Cy Young in ’89 (23-6 with a league-low 2.16 ERA and league-high 9.7 WAR), slotted between sub-.500 records and league-average-ish ERAs in ’88 and ’90. Notably, injuries were part of the pattern; arm troubles limited him to 25 starts in 1986 and surgery to remove bone chips in his elbow cut him to 20 starts in ’88. Through his eight seasons in Kansas City, he went 36-48 with a 3.70 ERA and 10.9 WAR in the even years, and 74-30 with a 2.85 ERA and 29.9 WAR in the odds — nearly triple the value!

In the last of those seasons, Saberhagen pitched his first no-hitter, against the White Sox on August 26, 1991, but also missed a month due to tendinitis in his shoulder; even so, his 5.1 WAR ranked eighth in the league. After the season, the Royals, who had grown increasingly wary of his $2.95 million price tag, traded him to the Mets in a five-player deal that included Gregg Jefferies and Kevin McReynolds heading in the other direction. Alas, tendinitis in his right index finger and a torn medial collateral ligament in his right knee limited Saberhagen to 34 starts over his first two seasons in New York. While injured, he made headlines and was docked a day’s pay for spraying bleach at reporters as a poorly-received practical joke during the Mets’ dismal 59-103 season in 1993. He made his third All-Star team in the strike-shortened 1994 campaign, going 14-4 with a 2.74 ERA and an 11.0 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He finished second in the NL in WAR (5.5) and third in Cy Young voting while turning in his first good season in an even-numbered year.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep it up. Saberhagen made 25 just starts in 1995, during which he was traded from the Mets to the Rockies, and while he helped the upstart third-year expansion team claim the NL Wild Card, he was pummeled in his lone postseason start by the Braves. He missed all of 1996 due to a pair of shoulder surgeries, the first to repair ligament damage shortly after the ’95 season ended, his second the following May, to implant a titanium anchor to hold his rotator cuff together. After the Rockies declined their $5 million option on him in late 1996, he signed with the Red Sox and spent most of the ’97 season rehabbing, pitching in just six late-season games. It paid off. In 1998, the 34-year-old Saberhagen went 15-8 with a 3.96 ERA while making 31 starts, his highest total since 1989, and helped the Red Sox claim the AL Wild Card. Despite three separate trips to what was then the DL in 1999, he pieced together a strong follow-up, with a 2.95 ERA and 3.8 WAR in 119 innings.

His shoulder was in no shape to continue. Where Dr. David Altchek recommended orthopedic surgery to clean up Saberhagen’s frayed rotator cuff, he didn’t expect to discover a 90% tear when he operated. Not until July 27, 2001 would Saberhagen take a major league mound again, but on that day he spun six innings of one-run ball for his 167th and final major league win. Alas, that was followed by two rough outings, more pain, and one final trip to the DL. He retired that winter at age 37; as of 2007, when I first wrote up his Hall of Fame case, he held the record with 1,016 days on the disabled list.

Given how much time he spent convalescing, rehabbing, or pitching through injuries, it’s remarkable how well Saberhagen did pitch. As I noted in the previous installment of this series, despite not debuting until 1984 and missing some time thereafter, he ranked seventh in WAR during the ’80-89 span. Extend that for a second decade and his ranking is even more impressive:

That’s one hell of a pitcher. By S-JAWS, Saberhagen has some separation above the previous trio as well as Hershiser and Stieb, and rankings-wise, he’s in the same neighborhood as Hall of Famers as disparate as Jim Bunning, Pud Galvin, and Don Sutton, not to mention CC Sabathia. His overall postseason numbers (2-4, 4.67 ERA in 54 innings) aren’t great, but between his 1985 heroics and his two Cy Youngs, he’s got a legitimate case.

Spoiler alert: so to do the last two pitchers on my list, Cone and Brown, but that will have to wait for my next installment.

For being the defending champions and on track to return to the postseason (and in position to snatch the NL East away from the Mets, whom they trail by one game at this writing), the Braves have certainly benefited from their share of surprises this year. Rookies Michael Harris II, Spencer Strider, and Vaughn Grissom have all made significant contributions to the team ahead of schedule. But one other notable breakthrough has come via a player many had written off: former first-round pick Kyle Wright, who after four seasons of bouncing between the minors and majors has stuck in the rotation for the entire season, and who on Sunday became this year’s first 20-game winner.

The fifth pick of the 2017 draft out of Vanderbilt, Wright debuted in the majors just 15 months later, making four appearances out of the bullpen. He broke camp with the team the following spring as a member of the rotation but didn’t last long, either in that season or in subsequent stints in 2020 or ’21. The Braves called his number in some important spots in the postseason in those last two years, and in fact, he made as many appearances in last year’s World Series as he did in the regular season (two), spending most of the 2021 campaign at Triple-A Gwinnett. Entering this season, he owned a 6.56 ERA, 6.56 FIP, and -0.8 WAR in 70 career innings, driven by unsightly walk and homer rates (14.8% and 1.93 per nine, respectively).

That’s not a pitcher that most contending teams would pencil in for 30 starts, regardless of his pedigree, but the Braves were particularly impressed by Wright’s performance in Game 4 of last year’s World Series against the Astros. Entering with two on and one out in the first inning in relief of rookie Dylan Lee, Wright limited the damage to one run by retiring both Carlos Correa and Kyle Tucker and allowed only a solo homer to Jose Altuve before departing after 4.2 innings. The Braves trailed 2–0 at the time, but their bats woke up in time to win, 3–2, giving them a 3–1 series lead.

Atlanta went into spring training with a couple of rotation openings behind Max Fried, Ian Anderson, and Charlie Morton, and the now–26-year-old Wright seized the opportunity to claim one. Even as the team stumbled out of the gate, he pitched well, posting a 1.13 ERA and 1.41 FIP in four April starts; the Braves went 4–0 in those and 6–12 in the rest of their games that month. After he spun six shutout innings in his season debut against the Reds on April 9, manager Brian Snitker told reporters, “I just think he looked like a completely different guy from the outset of Spring Training, when he came in a little more focused and driven. I think the best thing that happened to that kid was he spent a whole year at Triple-A. He pitched and figured out who he was and changed some things.”

Wright hasn’t been as dominant since April, but he’s been more than solid, only once allowing more than three runs in back-to-back starts. Until this month, he hadn’t posted an ERA above 3.94 in any calendar month this season, or a FIP above 4.36; an eight-run pounding by the A’s did a number on his September numbers, interrupting what was otherwise a stretch of seven outings allowing two runs or fewer. Overall, he’s pitched to a 3.18 ERA and 3.62 FIP (both 13th in the NL) as well as 2.8 WAR (23rd). His 23.9% strikeout rate ranks ninth in the league, and his 16.6% strikeout-walk differential and 175.1 innings both rank 11th. The latter is second on the team behind Fried’s 180.1 — no small matter given Anderson’s collapse and the struggles of Jake Odorizzi since the Braves traded for him in August. Read the rest of this entry »

Nobody can accuse the Mariners of skimping on frontline pitching in an effort to end their epic playoff drought. After signing Robbie Ray to a five-year, $115 million deal last winter, they traded a quartet of prospects for Luis Castillo on July 30. Already this was no mere rental, as the 29-year-old righty still has another season under control before free agency. Or rather had another season under control, because on Saturday, the Mariners announced they had agreed to terms with Castillo on a five-year, $108 million extension.

With the ink on the new deal barely dry, Castillo threw five solid innings against the Royals on Sunday, but faltered in the sixth and was charged with the first three runs of what turned out to be a gruesome 11-run rally that three other relievers tried in vain to contain. The Mariners, who led 11-2 before the onslaught, lost 13-12, dropping them to 3-7 on a 10-game road trip from hell, during which they lost series to the Angels, A’s, and Royals, and sent both Eugenio Suárez and Julio Rodríguez — their two most valuable players by WAR — to the injured list, the former with a fractured right middle finger, the latter with a lower back strain. Sunday’s loss dropped the Mariners to 83-69 overall, but fortunately for them, both the Rays (84-69) and Orioles (79-73) lost on Sunday as well, leaving Seattle four games ahead of Baltimore for the final American League Wild Card slot, and half a game behind Tampa Bay for the second slot.

The outing was the third rough one out of the last four for Castillo, who gave up six runs (three earned) to the White Sox on September 7, and four runs in 4.2 innings to the A’s on September 20. Even so, he’s pitched to a 3.34 ERA and 3.12 FIP in 59.1 innings over 10 starts since the trade, and a 3.06 ERA and 3.17 FIP in 144.1 innings overall. He didn’t make his season debut until May 9 due to a bout of shoulder soreness that sidelined him in the abbreviated spring, but among all pitchers with at least 140 innings, his 76 ERA- is 21st in the majors and his 78 FIP- is 12th; regardless of innings, his 3.4 WAR is in a virtual tie for 23rd among all starters. Read the rest of this entry »

Once upon a time, mid-September brought my annual check-in on the potential for end-of-season chaos in the playoff races via my Team Entropy series. With the new Collective Bargaining Agreement and the restructured postseason, however, Major League Baseball has done away with tiebreaker games and the scheduling mayhem that they could cause in favor of greed a larger inventory of playoff games. Along with the expansion of the playoff field from 10 teams to 12 and the Wild Card round from a pair of winner-take-all games to a quartet of three-game series, MLB did away with all winner-take-all regular season tiebreaker games. In the name of efficiency, we have no more Game 163s. Instead, ties will be decided by the excitement of… mathematics. Boooooooo!

The untangling of the often-complex scenarios by which those tiebreakers could come about was Team Entropy’s raison d’etre, though we were able to make do in 2020, when in the name of minimizing travel and keeping the schedule compact to accommodate an expanded field, MLB similarly opted to dispense with the on-field tiebreakers. That wasn’t nearly as much fun, but at the very least, it feels appropriate to sketch out what’s at stake while pouring one out in memory of what’s been lost.

As you’re probably aware by now, each league’s playoff field will consist of six teams, namely all three division winners plus three Wild Cards with the best records from among the remaining teams. The top two division winners by record get first-round byes, while the third division winner (no. 3 seed) plays host for all three games against the third-best Wild Card team (no. 6 seed) and the top Wild Card team (no. 4 seed) hosts all three games against the second-best Wild Card team (no. 5 seed). Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday night, Aaron Judge did nothing less than tie Babe Ruth’s long-insurmountable total of 60 home runs, but Giancarlo Stanton hit a homer that nearly upstaged him. Just minutes after Judge’s ninth-inning blast off the Pirates’ Wil Crowe trimmed Pittsburgh’s lead to 8-5, Stanton hit a walk-off grand slam. The shot offered some hope that he’s emerging from a prolonged slump, but until he sustains something close to his normal level of production, there’s plenty of reason for concern.

After Judge’s homer off Crowe, Anthony Rizzo doubled, Gleyber Torres walked, and Josh Donaldson singled to load the bases, still with nobody out. Crowe ran the count to 2-2 and then went down and in on a changeup. Stanton turned on it and hit a laser to left field:

First off, the home run was extreme. At 118 mph off the bat, it tied Shohei Ohtani’s June 25 homer off Logan Gilbert for the second-fastest of the year; Stanton also hit the fastest, a 119.8-mph blast off the Cubs’ Matt Swarmer. The home run’s 16-degree launch angle was just one degree off Stanton’s lowest homer of the season on April 8 off Nathan Eovaldi, though Xander Bogaerts had a 14-degree clothesline on August 31, and both Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Kevin Kiermaier had 15-degree ropes this year as well. Read the rest of this entry »

After Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani — in whatever order you want to place them in, I’ve said my piece — there might be no player in the majors who’s putting up numbers that boggle the mind as Spencer Strider’s do. The fireballing 23-year-old rookie has been utterly dominant this season, particularly since entering the Braves’ rotation on May 30. In Sunday’s start against the Phillies, he reached 200 strikeouts for the season, joining and even outdoing some notable company along the way.

Via his usual one-two punch of an upper-90s four-seam fastball and a baffling slider, Strider struck out 10 Phillies in six innings during his 5–2 victory, with Nick Maton going down swinging against a 99-mph heater in the fifth inning for no. 200. Strider had a no-hitter in progress at the time, and he maintained it for 5.2 innings before Alec Bohm connected against him for a solo homer.

Strider became the sixth pitcher to reach 200 strikeouts this season. What’s extraordinary is how few innings he needed to do it relative to the previous five:

In fact, Strider set a record for the fewest innings needed to reach the 200-strikeout plateau, doing so in 130 innings, 0.2 fewer than Randy Johnson needed in 2001. Cole was the second-fastest by that measure, doing so in 133.2 innings in 2019. Read the rest of this entry »

The return of Ozzie Albies didn’t last long. Out for three months due to a broken left foot that required surgery, the 25-year-old second baseman rejoined the Braves’ lineup on Friday, but he made it only about a game and a half before suffering a fractured right pinky that will sideline him for at least the remainder of the regular season. Once again, the defending champions will have to make do without a core player for some time.

After going 1-for-4 with a two-run double off the Phillies’ Nick Nelson in a 7–2 win on Friday night, Albies reached base twice against Aaron Nola on Saturday via a walk and a single. Upon tagging up and advancing from first base on an Eddie Rosario fly ball in the fourth inning, he slid into second headfirst, jamming his right hand into Jean Segura‘s foot as he did so. Albies remained in the game long enough to score on Ronald Acuña Jr.’s ensuing double but was replaced in the field by Vaughn Grissom at the start of the fifth.

Albies won’t need surgery, but he’ll need to wear the cast for which he was fitted on Saturday night for three weeks, after which the team will assess how soon he can return to action. If the Braves (91–55) don’t surpass the Mets (93–55) to win the NL East, or do so but fall behind the Cardinals (87–61) and don’t earn a first-round bye, they’ll start the playoffs on October 7, decreasing the likelihood that Albies is available for the Wild Card Series. If they do earn that bye, they wouldn’t play their first Division Series game until October 11, buying him more time.

Either way, it’s been a disappointing and frustrating season to this point for Albies, who in 64 games has hit just .247/.294/.409 with eight homers and a 93 wRC+ in 269 plate appearances. He began with a bang, homering six times in the Braves’ first 16 games, but hit for just a 70 wRC+ from that point until June 13. In a game against the Nationals that would mark the Braves’ 12th win in a 14-game winning streak, Albies hit an infield grounder via an awkward swing, then tripped while leaving the batter’s box and limped off the field. X-rays revealed a fracture in his left foot. He underwent surgery to stabilize the break two days later and didn’t begin a rehab assignment until September 1.

For the first eight weeks of Albies’ absence, the Braves patched things together at second base using Orlando Arcia, Phil Gosselin, and Robinson Canó, and they continued to win despite that trio’s subpar production. On August 10, when Arcia landed on the IL with a left hamstring strain, they recalled Grissom, a 21-year-old who placed third on our Braves top prospect list this spring, behind Michael Harris II and Spencer Strider. An 11th-round 2019 pick out of Paul J. Hagerty High School in Oviedo, Florida (where he was teammates with the Tigers’ Riley Greene), Grissom began the season with High-A Rome, where he finished last year. Between Rome and Double-A Mississippi, he hit a combined .324/.405/.494 (146 wRC+) with 14 homers and 27 steals. As with Harris, the Braves decided to promote him straight from Double-A, and the gambit has paid off.

Grissom homered off Darwinzon Hernandez in his major league debut, and he’s continued to hit at a sizzling clip since. His 130 wRC+ is fourth on the Braves since the day of his debut:

It’s an unlikely group that’s been hitting the snot out of the ball lately, helping to offset the sagging production of Riley, Swanson, and Olson, who to be fair have done their shares of the heavy lifting at other times this season. The Braves have bashed out 5.42 runs per game since Grissom’s debut, going an MLB-best 26–9 (.743). It’s helped that the pitching staff has accompanied that outburst by holding opponents to an even 3.0 runs per game in the meantime.

For as impressive as Grissom’s production has been, sustaining it would appear to be a tall order unless he can consistently hit the ball harder. The combination of his .345 batting average on balls in play and 84.2 mph average exit velocity is an unlikely one, with only one major leaguer owning both a lower EV and higher BABIP over the course of at least 100 PA this year:

“Williams” is the Marlins’ Luke Williams, whose .354 BABIP is offset by a 31.9% strikeout rate and 83.3 mph average exit velocity, and who hasn’t been very productive overall:

All of the players with combinations of EV and BABIP that are similar to Grissom’s are either pulling it off within a small sample or play in Colorado or both (yikes, Kris Bryant). And already there are signs that the league is catching up to Grissom, as The Athletic’s David O’Brien noted:

#Braves rookie Vaughn Grissom hit .420 with a .660 slugging percentage and 1.123 OPS in his first 14 MLB games, including 12 wins. In 17 games since, he's hit .210 (13-for-62) with a .339 slugging percentage and .607 OPS. Braves are 10-7 in that stretch.

— David O'Brien (@DOBrienATL) September 16, 2022

The good news is that Grissom’s 33% hard-hit rate (the percentage of batted ball events 95 mph or higher) and 34.1% sweet spot rate (the percentage of batted ball events with a launch angle in the 8–32 degree range) are both within a couple of points of the major league averages (35.8% for the former, 33% for the latter), and his 7.7% barrel rate is a full point above the average. His actual slash stats are well ahead of his .267 xBA and .433 xSLG, which is certainly ample production for a middle infielder, if not as eye-opening as the line he’s putting up.

On the other side of the ball, Grissom is fairly new to playing second base, and his defensive metrics — to the extent that we can put stock in them after 290 innings, which is admittedly a stretch — are a bit rough. As Eric Longenhagen wrote in his prospect report in June, the Braves drafted Grissom believing that he could stick at shortstop, and in the minors he’s played 161 games there, compared to 29 at third and 19 at second. He’s a bit in the red at the keystone via both DRS (-2) and RAA (-3), which jibes with Eric’s report of him being “back to projecting more in the 2B/3B area, and [possibly] en route to a super utility role” that would include time in the outfield rather than him being the shortstop in waiting if Swanson departs via free agency on the heels of a career-best season (115 wRC+, 5.7 WAR).

In the short term, the Braves will probably be fine with Grissom filling in for Albies, though the division race is tight, and the difference in paths between the winner (likely a first-round bye) and the runner-up (likely a series against the second Wild Card team, currently the Padres, with the winner playing the top-seeded Dodgers) is significant. Our Playoff Odds give the Mets the edge at holding onto their lead (67.3% to 32.7%) and at winning the World Series (16.5% to 11.8%), though it’s the Braves who will host the final regular-season matchup between the two teams, from September 30 to October 2. The NL East title remains up for grabs, and while losing Albies is a blow for the Braves, they won last year after losing Acuña for half a season. Neither the Mets nor any other team who crosses their path is likely to need a reminder.

2:01	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to today’s chat! It’s a crisp fall day in Brooklyn, appropriate for the September stretch run.

2:02	Jay Jaffe: I’ve got a piece today on Kevin Gausman https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fip-or-flop-why-kevin-gausman-isnt-part-of…

2:03	Jay Jaffe: yesterday I wrote about Trayce Thompson https://blogs.fangraphs.com/trayce-thompson-makes-a-splash-as-the-dodg…, and the day before that the very slumping Juan Soto https://blogs.fangraphs.com/juan-soto-isnt-having-a-juan-soto-year/

2:04	Jay Jaffe: This really is a bit of an unintended consequence of the way MLB came up with the new format. Zach Crizer wrote about it at Yahoo just the other day https://sports.yahoo.com/race-for-last-how-the-new-mlb-playoff-format-…

2:07	Jay Jaffe: My instinct tells me the odds are better by facing a weaker Cleveland team even if I’m on the road, but I worry about getting too cute by trying to steer myself to one opponent rather than another, and my gut tells me that keeping the home games might be better.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Gausman entered Thursday leading the American League in both FIP and WAR, but any shred of hope that he had of winning this year’s AL Cy Young award flew out the window faster than the ball left the bat on Yandy Díaz’s three-run homer on Thursday afternoon in Toronto. For the second outing in a row, Gausman served up two homers and was touched for five runs en route to an 11–0 trouncing by Tampa, leaving him with numbers likely to be overlooked by awards voters.

In recent weeks, while writing about a few AL Cy Young contenders, I quickly dismissed Gausman’s candidacy. But even before the Rays knocked the 31-year-old righty around, I resolved that at some point I’d dig deeper into his campaign — which, to be clear, has been a very good one — to explore the reasons why.

Gausman entered the season surrounded by high expectations and, for the first time in his career, long-term security. The fourth pick of the 2012 draft by the Orioles hasn’t always lived up to expectations; some years he’s pitched well enough to lead a rotation, and in others he’s been trade fodder and even waiver bait. On the heels of a solid (if abbreviated) 2020 campaign with the Giants, last year he fully broke out, earning his first All-Star selection and placing sixth in the NL Cy Young voting following a 14–6 season with a 2.81 ERA, 3.00 FIP, 227 strikeouts, and 4.8 WAR with the 107-win Nl West champions. That set him up for a huge payday, and just a few days before the lockout began, the Blue Jays opted for Gausman via a five-year, $110 million deal.

Thanks in part to the fact that he didn’t allow a walk or a homer in any of his first five starts — he actually didn’t serve up his first homer until his seventh start and his 50th inning — Gausman has led the league in FIP and WAR since mid-April and still does, with marks of 2.41 and 5.2 despite his recent bumpy ride. Among qualifiers, he additionally owns the league’s lowest walk rate (3.8%), third-highest strikeout-walk differential (24.3%), and fourth-highest strikeout rate (28.1%). That’s impressive stuff, and it certainly suggests a viable Cy Young candidate. Read the rest of this entry »