On Wednesday, I took a swing at a question often asked of me: Which players have helped their Hall of Fame cases the most this year? In that piece, I highlighted 10 position players, some of whom have gained significant ground via JAWS, others who reached major milestones or simply returned to productivity after injury-plagued stretches. For this dispatch, I’ll first turn my attention to the pitchers, then backtrack to cover a handful of others — position players and pitchers — in a more lightning-round fashion.

For this exercise, I’m focused mainly on mid- or late-career players rather than early-career ones. All of the starters have a JAWS of at least 42.0; roughly speaking, that’s the equivalent of seven six-win seasons, a point at which I start to take mid-career pitchers seriously. JAWS and peak (WAR7) gains are the major drivers of this, but positional standards, traditional milestones, and ordinal rankings are considerations as well. For relievers, I’m using the WAR-and-WPA hybrid stat via which I’ve examined recent candidates such as Mariano Rivera, Trevor Hoffman, and Billy Wagner. All WAR (and WPA) figures here refer to the Baseball Reference version, unless otherwise indicated.

One other thing to note: since my reference point for “old” WAR and JAWS figures dates back to January 2021, some portion of these players’ gains may be due to updates to bWAR itself, particularly via changes to ’19 and ’20 park factors and tweaks to 2017–20 Defensive Runs Saved that were announced in March, but also due to a second update to 2020 park factors that just went live on Tuesday.

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Which players have helped their Hall of Fame cases the most this year? The question comes up in almost every chat of mine, and sometimes in radio spots as well. You’d think I’d be used to this by now, but I rarely have more than an answer or two at the ready unless one of those players has recently been in the headlines for reaching a milestone. But with the end of the 2021 season in sight, and with the COVID-delayed Class of 2020 Hall of Fame Induction Day ceremony just a week away, it’s worth digging deeper for answers.

For this exercise, I’m focused mainly on mid- or late-career players rather than early-career ones. Yes, the five-win seasons of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Juan Soto, and Fernando Tatis Jr. are solid steps towards attaining the ceilings we envision — and likewise for Shohei Ohtani given his singularly remarkable two-way season — but all of those players are at least half a decade away from the point when we can start to get real about their chances. JAWS and seven-year peak WAR gains are the major drivers of my selections in this piece and a companion one for pitchers, but positional standards, traditional milestones, and ordinal rankings are considerations as well. With one exception, all of the players below have surpassed 35.0 JAWS; roughly speaking, that’s the equivalent of seven five-win seasons, a point at which I start to take mid-career position players seriously. All WAR figures here refer to the Baseball Reference version, unless otherwise indicated.

One other thing to note: since my reference point for “old” WAR and JAWS figures dates back to January 2021, some portion of these players’ gains may be due to updates to bWAR itself, particularly via changes to 2019 and ’20 park factors and tweaks to 2017-20 Defensive Runs Saved that were announced in March, but also due to a second update to 2020 park factors that just went live on Tuesday. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees’ 13-game winning streak came to an end in Oakland on Saturday, as a lineup that had been cranking out nearly seven runs per game for over a week had its bats silenced, and as starting pitcher Nestor Cortes bore the brunt of a questionable call or two, as well as some bad luck. It wasn’t his day, but that doesn’t diminish the job he’s done at the back of a banged-up rotation. Like many far better paid and more heralded players, the 26-year-old lefty has helped save New York’s season from oblivion, and in doing so, “Nasty Nestor” has carved himself a place in the majors while earning cult status.

Currently in his third stint with the Yankees, Cortes cuts an unassuming figure on the mound at 5-foot-11 and 210 pounds, armed a fastball that averages just over 90 mph. Those numbers belie the athleticism and inventiveness of the Cuban-born southpaw, who has taken a page from the playbook of countryman Orlando Hernandez by coming at hitters from a variety of angles, speeds, and arm slots, with the occasional hesitation thrown in for good measure.

Nestor Cortes, Messing with Timing. ? pic.twitter.com/7a0vRyFoB1

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 11, 2021

Thanks to his creativity, Cortes has posted a 2.77 ERA, 3.59 FIP, and 25.6% strikeout rate, generating a whole lot of soft contact in his 61.2 innings. In doing so, he’s helped to compensate for injuries to Corey Kluber, Domingo Germán, and Michael King, as well as the prolonged absence of Luis Severino, and to lift the Yankees from their .500-ish nadir into a spot atop the AL wild card race.

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The Royals aren’t going anywhere this season, but that doesn’t mean they’ve thrown in the towel. In the second half of August alone, they’ve taken series from the Astros, Cubs (a sweep), and Mariners and won 10 of 14 games. One big reason for their surge has been Salvador Perez, who’s homered eight times in that span and gone deep in his last five straight games. After a stellar showing in the shortened 2020 season — his first back from Tommy John surgery — he has already set a career high with 38 homers and appears on his way to several other full-season highs in counting and rate stats.

Indeed, the 31-year-old backstop has been on quite a binge lately. After hitting 21 homers in the season’s first half, Perez participated in the Home Run Derby, losing out to eventual champion Pete Alonso in the first round. His 17 homers since the All-Star break are tied with Joey Votto for the major league lead, and he’s second overall to only Shohei Ohtani (41).

Within that stretch, Perez homered in three consecutive games from July 28 to 30, his longest streak since 2017, then separately matched and surpassed his career-best streak of homering in four straight games, which he did April 6–9, 2017. What’s more, on August 26 against the Mariners’ Joe Smith and a day later, against Logan Gilbert, he hit two grand slams, the first of which erased a 4–1 deficit and the second a 5–1 deficit. In doing so, he became the 25th player in major league history and the first since the Brewers’ Tyler Saladino in 2019 to hit slams on back-to-back days. Here’s a supercut of the homers from his five-game streak:

In the wake of the first home run in that clip, one of the announcers notes that Perez is on pace to become just the sixth catcher to hit 40 home runs in a season, but that’s not quite correct. A player has hit at least 40 homers while spending the majority of his time as catcher six times; he is on track to become the seventh. However, a player has hit at least 40 homers while in the lineup as a catcher — as opposed to getting a breather at another position, whether it’s first base or designated hitter or pinch-hitter — five times, and Perez isn’t anywhere close to becoming the sixth:

Bench, man. In that 1970 season, when he was 22, he homered 38 times in 137 games as a catcher, five times in 14 games as a left fielder, and once apiece as a first baseman and right fielder, that while playing each of those positions seven times. In 1972, he homered 34 times in 127 games as a catcher, four in 17 games as a right fielder, and two in four games as a third baseman. He won the NL MVP award in both seasons.

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2:01	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my Friday chat!

2:01	Jay Jaffe: a bit of housekeeping while the queue fills up… today I’ve got a piece on Shohei Ohtani’s 45-degree, 110.7-mph homer from yesterday, and a dive into some other Statcast extremes https://t.co/HvBXV8OuR5

2:03

Jay Jaffe: Earlier this week, I wrote about the Yankees’ “Jumbo Package” outfield of Joey Gallo, Aaron Judge, and Giancarlo Stanton http://blogs.fangraphs.com/jumbo-package-helps-power-the-yankees-into-…. I also paid tribute to the late Bill Freehan, an 11-time All-Star catcher who got particularly shabby treatment by Hall of Fame voters http://blogs.fangraphs.com/remembering-bill-freehan-the-thinking-mans-…

2:06

Jay Jaffe: I think that if he gets to a major milestone (3,000 strikeouts or 200 wins) he has a decent chance, but from a JAWS standpoint, he either needs a couple more very big seasons or some serious longevity. From his B-Ref page: Starting pitcher (124th) 46.1career WAR |39.57yr-peak WAR |42.8JAWS |5.7WAR/162 Average HOF P (out of 65): 73.3 career WAR | 50.0 7yr-peak WAR | 61.7 JAWS | 4.5 WAR/162

2:06	Jay Jaffe: a Cy Young would help, though it’s not essential (see Mike Mussina)

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Shohei Ohtani does something amazing virtually every time he sets foot on a baseball field, and Thursday was no exception. Leading off the afternoon’s contest against the Orioles in Camden Yards, he connected with Keegan Akin’s second pitch of the day, a hanging curveball in the middle of the zone, and hit a towering homer:

It wasn’t just the fact that this was Ohtani’s 41st homer of the year, extending his major league lead, or that it was the third time he’s led off a game with a homer, which he did on June 25 against the Rays in Tampa Bay and on August 14 against the Astros in Anaheim. No, what stood out to these eyes was the combination of the Statcast specs — a 45-degree launch angle and a 110.7-mph exit velocity — on this shot that made it such a majestic drive, and one that particularly caught the eye of this launch angle aficionado.

I have a thing for what I’ve sometimes termed “launch angle porn,” one that predates the Statcast era. Even amid the unending barrage of home runs and their resultant highlights, I find that the visceral thrill of watching the beginning of a sky-scraping home run is the best part. Particularly when viewed on a two-dimensional screen of whatever size, we have no idea of the final distance that struck sphere will travel, but after the sight and sound of contact — and particularly, the mellifluous melody of a ball hitting the sweet spot of a wooden bat — launch angle is the first feedback we get, whether or not there’s a number attached to that steep ascent. As for exit velocity and distance, those come later, whether it’s a couple of seconds after when we see where that ball lands, or once the Statcast numbers are in.

Wherever you sit along the spectrum of baseball observers, from newcomer through casual fan, diehard, junkie, nerd, and professional, you are by no means obligated to care about such numbers. But if you’re the type that gets a kick out of at least an occasional peek at them, not for their own sake but because they increase our understanding of the game (and of ourselves): welcome to the club, and to today’s tour of the season-to-date’s Statcast extremes. This ride isn’t for everyone, but if it’s your thing, buckle up.

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You could have been forgiven for giving up the Braves for dead in the water last month. Heading into the July 30 trade deadline, they were 51–52, four games behind the NL East-leading Mets and eight back in the Wild Card race, with four teams between them and the second-slotted Padres. Three weeks earlier, they’d lost their best player, Ronald Acuña Jr., to a season-ending torn ACL, plus they were down last year’s NL home run and RBI leader (Marcell Ozuna), their starting catcher (Travis d’Arnaud), and three key members of their rotation (Ian Anderson, Huascar Ynoa, and Mike Soroka). Yet nearly four weeks later, the division race has been upended, and Atlanta is squarely in the drivers’ seat. What happened?

The short version is that the Braves were aggressive in giving their outfield a much-needed makeover at the deadline and entered Tuesday with an NL-best 17–5 record since then, albeit largely against a soft schedule. Even after their nine-game winning streak came to an end against the Yankees — themselves riding a nine-game winning streak at the time, making for a first-in-120-years matchup — to knock them back to 17–6, a half-game behind the Dodgers, they’ve left the Mets in the dust, as New York has run into buzzsaw after buzzsaw. Here’s the full picture of how the NL East standings and Playoff Odds have changed:

For those who prefer a picture, here you go (this one shows only the division-winning odds):

For the Braves, this run has come the old-fashioned way, as they’ve held their own against the other strong teams and steamrolled the weak ones. They’ve played series against just four teams with a .500 or better record: the Brewers (against whom they lost two of three), Cardinals (whom they swept), Reds (against whom they won two of three), and Yankees (who swept a two-game series) That’s a 6–5 mark against four teams with a weighted winning percentage of .560. Meanwhile, they’ve gone a combined 11–1 against the Nationals (5–1), Marlins (3–0), and Orioles (3–0), teams with a weighted .395 winning percentage. At the same time, the Mets went 3–14 against the Reds (1–2), Phillies (0–3), Dodgers (1–6), and Giants (1-3), four teams with a weighted winning percentage of .592, and 4–3 against the Marlins (1–3) and Nationals (3–0), a pair with a combined winning percentage of .417.

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Monday night brought something unseen in the majors since September 7, 1901: a matchup between two teams on winning streaks of nine or more games. In this case, both the visiting Yankees and the hosting Braves were riding streaks of exactly nine wins, and it was New York who prevailed with a 5–1 victory.

Monday’s game also brought something with only slightly more precedent: the fourth appearance by the tallest outfield in AL/NL history, one made possible by the Yankees’ aggressive approach at the trade deadline and their momentary good fortune when it comes to injuries. Their lineup featured 6-foot-5 Joey Gallo in left field, 6-foot-7 Aaron Judge in center, and 6-foot-6 Giancarlo Stanton in right, each of whom figured significantly in the team’s win. That trio of elite power hitters has played a played a prominent role in helping the Yankees blow past the Red Sox, A’s and Mariners to the top of the AL Wild Card standings.

Facing the Braves’ Huascar Ynoa at Truist Park, Stanton swatted an opposite-field solo home run in the second inning to give the Yankees a 1–0 lead, then added a two-run double that scored both DJ LeMahieu (who was hit by a pitch) and Gallo (who walked) to break a 1-1 tie in the sixth. His first drive left the bat at 103.4 mph, his second at a scorching 119.2 mph:

The Yankees extended the lead against Edgar Santana in the eighth via a two-out Judge single, walks by Gallo and Luke Voit, and then a two-run single by Gary Sánchez, effectively sealing the game. Gallo, meanwhile, had the defensive play of the night via his diving catch of a Guillermo Heredia drive in the second inning:

Judge traveled a long ways — 87 feet, according to Statcast — to haul in Jorge Soler’s fly ball in the third:

Quipped Yankees manager Aaron Boone afterwards, “It’s nice to see the jumbo package out there playing really well.”

The Jumbo Package, or the Big Boy Outfield, or the Large Adult Sons of Brian Cashman — by whatever name, this is the tallest outfield in major league history, at least going by the listed heights at Baseball Reference. Those measurements may contain their share of fudge, but unless you’ve got a tape measure, that’s the best we’re going to do.

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A perennial All-Star catcher who deserved better from Hall of Fame voters, Bill Freehan spent his entire 15-season career with the Tigers, his hometown team. Durable and skilled on both sides of the ball, he served as the starter on Detroit’s only two postseason teams across a 38-year span, including catching every inning of the 1968 World Series and making two of that seven-game epic’s key defensive plays, most notably the catch of Tim McCarver’s foul ball to dethrone the defending champion Cardinals and seal the Tigers’ only title between 1946 and ’83.

The photo of pitcher Mickey Lolich — whom Freehan had guided to three complete-game victories in the Series — leaping into his catcher’s arms after securing the final out was an iconic one. It was the culmination of an historic pairing, too; that battery started together in 324 regular-season games, a major league record.

Freehan died on Thursday, August 19, at the age of 79. For years, he had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease — which his family suspected was related to the concussions he suffered during his playing career — and had been living under hospice care. His condition prevented him from participating in the Tigers’ 50th anniversary celebration of that championship back in 2018.

Even while spending nearly his entire career playing alongside the man known as “Mr. Tiger,” Hall of Famer Al Kaline, Freehan was considered the team leader. “He was the heart and soul of the ballclub,” said teammate Jim Price, the Tigers’ backup catcher from 1967 to ’72. In 1968, Sport magazine’s Arnold Hano hailed him as “the thinking man’s catcher,” writing that he “leads the way sergeants lead, not second lieutenants. He leads by example.”

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2:02

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks, and welcome to another edition of my Friday chat! I’m back from a lovely week in San Diego, where I got to hang out with family for the first time in 18 months, get my feet wet in the ocean and a pool while watching my daughter play with her cousin, catch a game at Petco Park (no Tatis Jr., alas), drink some excellent craft beer, see one of my oldest friends, and much more.

2:04

Jay Jaffe: Anyway, no article from me today, but I’m on this weeks’ FanGraphs Audio podcast, talking to the great Trent Rosecrans about Joey Votto’s rebound and what it’s like to cover him: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-audio-len-kasper-and-lenny-dinar… Yesterday, I wrote about Chris Bassitt’s good luck yesterday (https://blogs.fangraphs.com/chris-bassitt-escaped-a-potential-nightmar…), and on Monday I’ll have a tribute to Bill Freehan, the 11-time All-Star catcher who passed away on Thursday.

2:07

Jay Jaffe: That’s a good question. Not only do I think it’s going to be much harder for voters to overlook yet another transgression, but I wonder if he could face a fate along the lines of his former double play partner, Roberto Alomar. Recall that Alomar was fired by MLB as a consultant and placed  on its ineligible list due to “an allegation of sexual misconduct by a baseball industry employee.” The latest Vizquel allegation of sexual misconduct was also brought an industry employee, which would appear to me to leave him open to discipline by the league, hence my speculation.

2:09

Jay Jaffe: No. Using the worst picks for the Hall as the new bar for entry opens up the field to literally thousands of players — go look up Tommy McCarthy, an even worse choice than Maz from a player perspective, and the Early Baseball Era Committee ballot, which only gets voted on once every 10 years, is even more crowded now that Negro Leagues and pre-Negro Leagues Black baseball candidates are eligible again.

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