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 signingRobbie 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:
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:
Braves Offense Since Vaughn Grissom’s Debut (8/10/22)
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:
.320 BABIP with Average Exit Velocity 85 mph or Lower
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.
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.
WildCard: If you were a fan of one of the three (likely) AL wildcard teams— would you secretly be rooting for third to trade home field advantage for a matchup against the AL central winner? Or would you rather home field advantage against one of the other stronger (by record at least) WC teams?
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.
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 writingabout 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 »
Trayce Thompson may not be the most accomplished professional athlete in his family — not when father Mychal Thompson and older brother Klay Thompson have six NBA titles and five All-Star selections between them — but for the first time in six years, he’s making significant noise of his own at the major league level. Now on his second stint with the Dodgers, the 31-year-old Thompson is in the midst of a modest breakout, one that could have ramifications for Los Angeles’ roster in October and beyond.
A night after the Dodgers clinched their ninth NL West title in 10 years, Thompson started in right field in place of Mookie Betts and followed a solo homer by Will Smith with one of his own, a 445-foot shot off Zach Davies. That tied the game at 2–2, though Los Angeles eventually lost in extra innings.
The homer was Thompson’s 10th of the season in just 205 plate appearances; he’s the eighth Dodger to reach double digits. Even with a September slump, the well-traveled outfielder has the highest wRC+ of any Dodger since the All-Star break and is tied for third in WAR, behind or alongside three players who are going to wind up somewhere on MVP ballots:
That’s pretty lofty company for a player who’s on his third organization and fourth team (including affiliates) this season. Thompson is yet another reminder of the Dodgers’ ability to find diamonds in the rough and turn them into championship-caliber cogs, a facet of their organization that’s been as essential as their player development pipeline. Turner was in his age-29 season when he became a mainstay in 2014, Taylor in his age-26 season in ’17, and Muncy in his age-27 season in ’18. Despite their staggered starts, they’re three of the Dodgers’ five most valuable position players since Dave Roberts took over as manager in 2016. Read the rest of this entry »
The Josh Hadertrade isn’t the only deadline deal that has yielded less-than-rewarding results thus far for the Padres. Juan Soto hasn’t been as bad as Hader at his worst (the closer has lately righted the ship), but after a good start for his new team, he’s fallen into a deep slump. As the Padres battle to hold onto the third NL Wild Card spot, his struggles are worth a closer look.
When he was acquired from the Nationals in an eight-player blockbuster on August 2, Soto was in the midst of a solid-but-not-great season by his own high standards. While his 151 wRC+ was only four points off his career mark, his .246/.408/.485 line was far below his typical slash stats (.291/.427/.538) — not enough to be a dealbreaker or to rate as a significant long-term concern, but notable nonetheless. That said, the Padres’ right field mess made my Replacement Level Killers list, and an on-base percentage above .400 will cover a multitude of sins.
Soto debuted with the Padres on August 3, going 1-for-3 with a pair of walks in a 9–1 rout of the Rockies. He continued to hit well (.286/.438/.460 from August 3 to 21), but on August 23, he was scratched from the lineup with what the Padres called “left mid-back tightness.” Via MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell, “His back flared up while he was swinging in the batting cage shortly before first pitch. During the game, Soto took further swings in the cage, hoping he might get a chance to pinch-hit, but he wasn’t able to.”
Soto didn’t play again until August 27, though he missed just three games thanks to a schedule that bracketed a two-game series against the Guardians with off days on either side. Upon returning, he collected hits in his first two plate appearances against the Royals’ Daniel Lynch, and the next night homered off Anthony Misiewicz. But in the 13 games since then, he’s gone 3-for-42, all singles, and didn’t collect an RBI until Tuesday night. He’s walked 12 times during that stretch and was hit by a pitch — causing him to leave a September 7 game with a right shoulder contusion, which may be a contributing factor here — en route to a .120/.313/.180 post-injury performance. In all, his six hits over a 15-game span is the second-lowest total of his major league career; he had five hits in 15 games in two overlapping stretches in September 2019.
Is the slump as bad as it looks? My assumption going into this investigation was “probably not,” given that even with his return against the Royals, we’re talking about a total of 64 plate appearances and even fewer batted ball events. With the caveat that this is some small sample spelunking, it’s worth noting that since his absence, Soto has pretty much matched his Statcast stats for the first four and a half months of the season, which is to say that he’s hit the ball as hard, more or less:
Juan Soto Statcast Splits
Split
BBE
EV
LA
Barrel%
HardHit%
AVG
xBA
SLG
xSLG
wOBA
xwOBA
Through Aug. 21
333
90.8
8.8
12.6%
47.1%
.252
.273
.481
.527
.391
.415
Since Aug. 27
44
90.4
16.4
9.1%
47.7%
.120
.234
.180
.377
.253
.357
Soto has produced a similar average exit velo and hard-hit rate and a slightly lower barrel rate (the difference in the smaller sample amounts to falling about two barrels short), but very different expected and actual outcomes. Note the difference in average launch angle; Soto generally ranks among the game’s top power hitters despite the fact that he hits the ball on the ground about half the time (career 48.6% groundball rate) and has an average launch angle below 10 degrees. In fact, since his debut in 2018, he’s one of four players with a slugging percentage above .500 (.528) and an average launch angle below 10 degrees (8.4); the other three — Eloy Jiménez, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Christian Yelich — all have SLGs in the .507–.510 range with angles in the 5.9–8.3 degree range. If Soto is averaging 16.4 degrees even for a stretch of time, something is probably off. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Jaffe
