For the full introduction to the Replacement-Level Killers series, follow the link above. While still focusing upon teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a closer look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the July 30 deadline, but particularly for these two positions — where pending free agents Javier Báez, Kris Bryant, and Trevor Story rate among the best players available and are toiling for teams who can’t be considered contenders — I’d be surprised if there isn’t some movement, even beyond the teams that make the cut for these lists. As with previous entries in this series, won-loss records and Playoff Odds are through yesterday (July 20, in this case), but statistics through the day before (July 19).

Read the rest of this entry »

For the full introduction to the Replacement-Level Killers series, follow the link above. While still focusing upon teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of their roster. I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the July 30 deadline, and in this two-position batch in particular, I don’t get the sense that any of these teams have these positions atop their shopping lists. With catchers in particular, framing and the less-quantifiable aspects of knowing a pitching staff make it easier for teams to talk themselves out of changing things up unless an injury situation has compromised their depth.

Note that all individual stats in this article are through July 18, but the won-loss records and Playoff Odds include games of July 19. Read the rest of this entry »

In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing subpar production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have presented it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t be slaves to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — might be considered fair game. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a team may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor due to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it.

For this series, I’ll go around the diamond, pointing out the most egregious examples of potential Killers at each position among contenders, which I’ll define as teams who are above .500 or have playoff odds of at least 10.0%. That definition covers 17 teams (sorry Braves, Cubs, Cardinals, and Nationals, but you’ll have to do this without my help). If one of the aforementioned fringe teams gets their record or odds above the threshold this week, I’ll do an additional Very Special installment at the end. And while I may mention potential trade targets, I’m less focused on these teams’ solutions than I am the problems, because hey, human nature.

This first installment will cover first basemen. All statistics within this piece are through Saturday, July 17. Read the rest of this entry »

2:01	Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, good afternoon and welcome to my first chat of the second half of the season. I’ve got a piece up today on All-Star Game MVP Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with an eye on the areas he’s improved https://blogs.fangraphs.com/vladimir-guerrero-jr-is-soaring-to-new-hei…

2:02

Jay Jaffe: and also not one but two podcast appearances, one with Dan Szymborki for FanGraphs Audio in which we discussed the Home Run Derby, All-Star Game, and Joey Gallo https://t.co/XNafn24I3L, and one with Kevin Goldstein in which we not only discussed the aforementioned festivities and some Hall of Fame stuff but also chatted with a reader who’s getting his PhD in studying graffiti (?!) https://t.co/I8hUS5v68d

2:03	Jay Jaffe: Anyway, on with the show

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Guy’s been in the majors less than a month. Mike Trout hit .220/.281/.390 in 40 games in 2011. As Kevin Goldstein would say, calm down.

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Baseball is hard

Read the rest of this entry »

On the strength of his monster home run and an additional RBI groundout, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. took home MVP honors from the All-Star Game at Coors Field on Tuesday night. In doing so, the 22-year-old slugger — who also nearly decapitated National League starter Max Scherzer with his hardest-hit ball of the evening — became the youngest player ever to win that award. The performance was just the latest chapter of Guerrero’s breakout, as he lives up to the high expectations set by his pedigree and his precocious development.

If for some reason you haven’t seen his highlights from Tuesday night, here’s Guerrero’s first-inning plate appearance, where his 111.1 mph rocket back through the box produced such a close call that Guerrero felt obliged to apologize to Scherzer, who remarked after the game, “I’m alive… that’s the success story… I’m just grateful I still have a blue eye and a brown eye”:

Vlad Guerrero Jr. almost takes Max Scherzer’s head off and then apologizes ? pic.twitter.com/oTv06MiY5o

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) July 14, 2021

And here’s Guerrero’s third-inning homer off Corbin Burnes:

The 468-footer was the longest All-Star Game homer of the Statcast era, surpassing Kris Bryant’s 2016 shot by a good 58 feet. With it, Guerrero became the second-youngest player to go yard in an All-Star Game, after Johnny Bench did so in 1969 at the age of 21 years and 228 days. In winning MVP honors, Guerrero, at 22 years and 119 days, surpassed Ken Griffey Jr., who was 117 days older when he won in 1992. Meanwhile, Guerrero and dad Vlad joined the Griffeys and Bobby and Barry Bonds as the only father/son combinations to homer in the All-Star Game.

With the single-game spotlight and honors behind him, Guerrero is now angling to become the youngest position player to win a regular season MVP award; he won’t surpass pitcher Vida Blue, who was 22 years and 64 days old on the final day of the 1971 season, but would surpass Bench, who was 22 years and 298 days on the final day of the ’70 season. He and his father, the AL MVP in 2004, would be the first pair to win the award. Of course, the competition for Guerrero to win is daunting given the ongoing tour de force of Shohei Ohtani. A month ago, Guerrero led the AL in all three Triple Crown categories and WAR, kindling a debate over the merits of that combination relative to Ohtani’s pitching. At that point, Dan Szymborski estimated Vladito’s chances of winning the Triple Crown at 19.1%, but the five-homer lead he held over Ohtani has become a five-homer lead for Ohtani (33-28) thanks to the Angels’ superstar’s recent flurry. Guerrero’s .332 batting average and 73 RBI both still leads the AL, as does his .439 on-base percentage, 189 wRC+, and 4.6 position player WAR, though Ohtani has taken over the combined WAR lead at 5.5, and has a slugging percentage 40 points higher than Guerrero’s .658.

Regardless of whether he’s first or second in any category, Guerrero has taken a massive leap forward from his performances in 2019 and ’20, which were solid enough for a 20- or 21-year-old, but hardly All-Star caliber. After batting .272/.339/.433 (105 wRC+) in 2019, he showed more power last year, hitting .262/.329/.462 (112 wRC+); his ISO jumped by 37 points, and his home run rate rose from 2.9% to 3.7%, a gain of about 28%.

Guerrero is showing even greater in-game power this year — his display in the 2019 Home Run Derby provided more evidence of raw power than anyone this side of Iggy and the Stooges — as you can see from the basic numbers, but before discussing that, it’s worth acknowledging his improved plate discipline. He’s cut his rate of swinging at pitches outside the strike zone from 31.6% as a rookie to 27.4% last year and then 25.3% this year; among qualifiers, he’s climbed from the 46th percentile to the 70th and now the 83rd. As a result, he’s posted the majors’ fifth-largest gain in walk rate from 2020 to ’21, jumping 5.7 percentage points to 13.9%; only Starling Marte (+7.9%,), Joey Gallo (+7.7%), Carlos Correa (5.9%), and Andrew McCutchen (+5.8%) have gained more. While Guerrero is striking out more as well (up two points to 17.6%), he’s still in the 70th percentile in that category.

The biggest difference in his performance relative to 2020, though, is how much harder he’s hitting the ball:

Guerrero’s exit velocity already ranked in the 93rd percentile last year, but he was hitting grounders about twice as often as fly balls. He still hits more grounders than flies, but his 9.8 percentage point drop in groundball rate is the majors’ fourth-largest behind Jonathan Villar (-14.0%), Kyle Schwarber (-10.6%), and Kevin Pillar (-9.9%). He’s nearly doubled his average launch angle (from 4.6 degrees to 8.4), and with it, has nearly doubled his barrel rate while increasing his already-high hard-hit rate. A picture is worth a thousand words:

Guerrero has improved in every Statcast-tracked category here — even the ones that pertain to his speed and defense, the evidence of the better conditioning and work he’s put into learning a new(ish) position — except for maximum exit velocity, where he already ranked in the 99th percentile. In case you were worried that he was stagnating, he has actually shown improvement there nonetheless, from last year’s 116.1 mph to 117.4 (for what it’s worth, he topped both with a 118.9 mph single in 2019). Fittingly, where last year’s hardest-hit ball was a lineout to second base, this year’s was a home run off the Rays’ Ryan Yarbrough, the first of the two he hit on May 24 at the team’s temporary Dunedin home:

That first one had a projected distance of 461 feet, four short of his regular season career long, set just eight days earlier off the Phillies’ Brandon Kintzler, also in Dunedin:

Guerrero’s All-Star Game homer topped that, albeit with an assist from Coors Field’s altitude (which added 32 feet, according to Weather Applied Metrics’ Ken Arneson) if not the wind (which took away 10).

On the subject of harnessing his incredible bat speed towards improving his ability to get the ball in the air, in April our own Carmen Ciardiello wrote about the possibility of Guerrero improving what he called his attack angle to better launch the ball. Using an approximation based upon the top 5% of each player’s hardest-hit batted balls, Ciardiello compared Guerrero to the other mighty sluggers with similar maximum exit velocities and estimated his attack angle at 8.71 degrees. Only Giancarlo Stanton (8.74 degrees) had one nearly as flat, while Ronald Acuña Jr. had the highest angle at 17.86 degrees, followed by Trout at 16.94. In my attempt to track this as a potential explanation for Guerrerro’s year-to-year improvement, I calculated that based upon his top 5% of hard-hit balls, his attack angle has actually dipped to an average of 6.69 degrees; five of his 13 hardest-hit balls thus far have negative launch angles, meaning that they were hit on the ground, while only four are double-digit positives, all of them homers. I’ll leave it to Ciardello for further interpretation of those results.

Looking at Guerrero’s year-to-year improvement by pitch type what quickly becomes apparent is that he’s now a serial murderer of four-seam fastballs; he’s gone from a .254 AVG, .465 SLG, and .356 wOBA against them last year to a .386 AVG, .830 SLG, and .538 wOBA. Among players with at least 100 PA ending in four-seamers, only Juan Soto has a higher average, while those other two figures are tops. Guerrero’s 18 runs above average against four-seamers is the highest of any player against any pitch, and represents a full 18-run gain relative to last year as well. His other big improvements are against sliders, where he’s gained eight runs (from +1 to +9) primarily by improving from .576 SLG to .633, and sinkers, where he’s gained six runs (from +3 to +9) primarily by improving from .485 SLG to .614.

Using 200-PA cutoffs for both last year and this one, Guerrero owns the majors’ biggest gains in both slugging percentage and wRC+. Here’s the top 15 for the former:

And here’s the latter:

I should point out that my somewhat arbitrary choice of 200 PA as a cutoff for both seasons — made in part because I wanted batting title qualifiers for 2020, but then 186 PA just looked weird — meant leaving Ohtani off the tables given that he had just 175 PA last year. His 332-point gain in slugging percentage (from .366 to .698) and 98-point gain in wRC+ (from 82 to 180) dwarf the gains of Guerrero and the rest, so if you want to imagine a version of the tables with him on top, you’re free to do so.

So long as we’re talking improvements, it’s worth noting Guerrero’s progress on the defensive side. After a rough introduction to the majors at third base in 2019 (-9.4 UZR, -3 DRS, and -19 OAA in just 824 innings), he split last season between first base (-1.8 UZR, -4 DRS, -2 OAA in 324 innings) and DH. Particularly given his weight and conditioning issues — he showed up to summer camp somewhere in the vicinity of 285 pounds — his future appeared to tilt towards the latter slot, limiting his ceiling. After apologizing to his teammates for showing up out of shape last summer, he lost 42 pounds this past winter and appears to have kept the weight off. His mobility and flexibility have improved and so have his defensive numbers, which are now within hailing distance of average (-0.5 UZR, -2 DRS, and 0 OAA in 576.2 innings).

Vladdy's split stats: Good
Vladdy's splits: Also good ? pic.twitter.com/KzX2N8YFNC

— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) April 14, 2021

Even for a player who was so heavily touted as a prospect — recall that he was the consensus number one heading into 2019 — Guerrero has come a long way in a short time, and what he’s doing at such a young age puts him alongside the likes of Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr., not to mention some of the game’s other recent prodigies:

Right now, Guerrero has the highest slugging percentage and wRC+ of any of the bunch, though preserving that distinction is no small challenge given the amount of season remaining. Our rest-of-season projections forecast him to add another 2.3 WAR, which would tie him with Seager for fifth on the list. At the rate he’s going, it would hardly be a surprise if he climbs higher.

Joey Gallo didn’t win in his long-anticipated Home Run Derby debut — he didn’t even make it out of the first round or hit a single 500-foot drive at Coors Field on Monday night — but he earned his trip to Denver’s All-Star festivities nonetheless. After an injury-marred 2019 and a dismal follow-up in the pandemic-shortened season, the 27-year-old slugger is putting together his best and most complete campaign.

Gallo’s second All-Star appearance was less eventful than his first. He replaced starter Aaron Judge in the bottom of the fifth inning of Tuesday night’s game, but didn’t get to bat until the eighth, when he drew a walk against Mark Melancon in his only plate appearance. In his All-Star debut two years ago, he had entered in the sixth inning, and swatted a solo homer off Will Smith in his lone plate appearance in the seventh. That run, which at the time extended the American League’s lead to 4-1, proved to be the difference-maker in the Junior Circuit’s 4-3 win.

In between those two appearances, Gallo’s had more downs than ups, but he’s worked hard to earn his way back. Having slugged 81 homers while batting a lopsided but respectable .208/.322/.516 (113 wRC+) in 2017-18, he was in the midst of a breakout campaign when the ’19 All-Star game rolled around, hitting an eye-opening .275/.417/.643 (162 wRC+) with 20 home runs in 61 first-half games. An oblique strain that sidelined him for over three weeks in June left him 19 plate appearances shy of qualifying for the batting title, but at that point, his slugging percentage and wRC+ trailed only Mike Trout (by three points and 20 points, respectively). Alas, Gallo played just 10 games in the second half before being diagnosed with a fractured hamate in his right hand. He underwent surgery, and while he expected to be out only about four weeks, continued pain while swinging prevented him from returning at all. Read the rest of this entry »

For all of the anticipation and hype that surrounded the long-awaited participation of two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani as well as distance king Joey Gallo in their first Home Run Derbies — and at mile-high Coors Field, no less — it was easy to overlook the one contestant in the field who’d done this before. Because there was no Derby last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, 2019 winner Pete Alonso entered Monday night as the reigning champion, and he defended his title successfully and emphatically.

Indeed, the Mets’ 6-foot-3, 245-pound slugger seemed built for this competition, and he practically toyed with his opponents. After hitting a contest-high 35 homers in the quarterfinals, Alonso didn’t need his full allotment of time to win either of his final two rounds, capping his run by beating Trey Mancini in the finals, 23-22. In victory, he became the fourth player to win multiple Home Run Derbies, after Ken Griffey Jr. (1994, ’98-99), Prince Fielder (2009, ’12) and Yoenis Céspedes (2013-14). Mancini, who missed the 2020 season while undergoing chemotherapy for stage three colon cancer, put forth a valiant effort with a quick compact stroke that contrasted with Alonso’s long swing, but ultimately, he was outhit and outdistanced.

Alonso and Mancini were both part of the wave of upsets that characterized the night. In the quarterfinal round, all four lower seeds advanced, knocking out the Vegas-favored heavyweights, Ohtani and Gallo. While Ohtani’s loss to eighth-seeded Juan Soto rated as something of a disappointment given his headliner status, their battle was epic, requiring two rounds of tiebreakers. It’s worth noting that Coors Field favors right-handed hitters when it comes to homers, and three of the four lower seeds that advanced — the fifth-seeded Alonso, sixth-seeded Mancini, and seventh-seeded Trevor Story — swing righty. The seedings, by the way, were based upon the participants’ home run totals as of July 7; it wasn’t as though any Derby- or Statcast-related science went into the matchups. Read the rest of this entry »

Politics aside, the biggest upside to Major League Baseball’s decision to move this year’s All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver is that for the first time in 23 years, the Home Run Derby will be held at Coors Field, where baseballs fly further than any other major league venue due to the mile-high altitude. If you have any sustained interest in the event, this is the bucket list location for a Derby, and if that’s not enough to juice this competition, MLB has made clear the balls themselves won’t be stored in the humidor prior to the festivities, theoretically resulting in drives of even greater distance. Short story longer: MORE DINGERS!

If there’s a downside to the pending fireworks show, it’s that the new baseball MLB introduced this year isn’t carrying quite as far as years past. The average distance of a hard-hit fly ball — that is, one hit with an exit velocity of 95 mph or greater — is 366 feet, which is up five feet from the shortened 2020 season but down nine feet relative to ’19, the year those distances peaked.

That decreased distance is despite this year’s hard-hit fly balls having the highest average exit velocity of the Statcast era at 101.2 mph; they averaged 101 mph in 2019, the year that home runs peaked with an average of 1.39 per team per game. That was deemed Too Many Homers, and after dropping by 8% from 2019 to ’20, per-game home run rates have fallen another 7.85% this year, to 1.18 per team per game. The good news is that at Coors Field, that downturn won’t matter; via Statcast, this year’s hard-hit fly balls are averaging 393 feet — 7.3% further — and that’s with the humidor. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks ago, on June 24 at Dodger Stadium, Zach Davies and three relievers combined to throw the 2021 season’s umpteenth no-hitter, even while walking the ballpark. The defeat of the Dodgers lifted the Cubs to 42–33 and kept them tied with the Brewers atop the NL Central. But for as pretty as Chicago appeared to be sitting at that moment, the team didn’t win again until Wednesday night, as an 11-game losing streak not only knocked it out of first but below .500 — a slide that probably marks the end of an era, as it changes the calculus for how the organization should view its current roster.

While five of their losses during the streak were by a single run — including three straight to the Reds in Cincinnati last weekend — the Cubs also surrendered 13 or more runs four times in that stretch, losing to the Brewers by the lopsided scores of 14–4 and 15–7 (blowing a 7–0 first-inning lead in that one, yeesh), and to the Phillies, 13–3 and 15–10, the latter on back-to-back nights. Compounding their misery is that they abetted Milwaukee’s 11-game winning streak and briefly dipped to fourth place.

Having lost again to the Phillies on Thursday, the Cubs enter Friday tied for third in the NL Central, 9 1/2 games behind Milwaukee, and eight games back in the Wild Card race. Their playoff odds, which were a modest 35.7% in the wake of the no-hitter, have dwindled to 4.7% — a fact of which club president Jed Hoyer is well aware. With a trio of pivotal players — Javier Báez, Kris Bryant, and Anthony Rizzo — all on expiring contracts, Hoyer effectively put up the “For Sale” sign while speaking to reporters on Thursday. Via The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney:

Cubs president Jed Hoyer: “Eleven days ago, we were fully on the buy side of (the trade deadline), everyone was calling about that. Obviously, people are now calling to see which players are available, so it’s a very different scenario than we expected. Life comes at you fast.”

— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) July 8, 2021

Jed Hoyer is open for business and taking phone calls ahead of trade deadline: “When your playoff odds get into single digits at this time of the year, you have to keep one eye on the future and what moves you can potentially make that can help build the next great Cubs team.”

— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) July 8, 2021

Read the rest of this entry »

2:01

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, sorry I’m late. I’ve somehow become entangled in Starlin Castro 3,000 Hit Twitter Jay Jaffe @jay_jaffe Starlin Castro is the new Nick Markakis, with people coming out of the woodwork to ask what-if-he-reaches-3000-hits, which won’t happen given the erosion of his skills. รקเкє@WeOnFriar @matt29756930 @jay_jaffe @WalkingTaako ’20 season cost Castro 100+ hits. Dude doesn’t walk so he’s going to collect hits if in the lineup. Would need to somehow average 136 hits a year from ’21-’30 (Age 40 season). He’s at 83 already this year. Hope it happens. Will be fun to see what BBWAA does with it. 9 Jul 2021

2:02	Jay Jaffe: My piece on the Cubs’ losing streak and pending teardown just went up a short time ago https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-cubs-losing-streak-portends-furthe…

2:03	Jay Jaffe: And yesterday I wrote about the state of the Dodgers’ rotation in the wake of Clayton Kershaw’s trip to the IL and Trevor Bauer’s administrative leave https://t.co/VP7Ty2CtNH

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Anyway, the queue is filling so let’s get to it. Before I do so, let me caution you that I have absolutely no opinions or knowledge pertaining to the draft. You’re barking up the wrong tree here.

2:05	Jay Jaffe: Maybe a little — i’d have guessed one or two guys a week would get nabbed, as a warning to the rest, but so far it’s just Hector Santiago, and he’s appealing the suspension.

Read the rest of this entry »