There’s not a lot of footage out there of Garrett Richards throwing a changeup. This is because he would pretty much never throw a changeup, and this is because doing so never made him feel all that comfortable. So, in the past, Richards wouldn’t throw many changeups, but, below, you can see Richards throw a changeup from just a few weeks ago. As a bonus, I’ll also include an additional changeup, thrown on Tuesday.
I don’t normally like to re-visit post topics, especially within the same month, but I’m doing this for two reasons. For one, now we have some data. And for two, the Dodgers have been plagued by bad news for much of spring training, so it’s worth spreading a little optimism. Players have been slowed by injuries left and right, but Alex Wood looks like he could be poised for a major rebound season.
This is what I wrote on March 3. The talk back then was about how Wood spent the offseason trying to correct his mechanics, which started slipping from normalcy somewhere around the end of 2014. It didn’t help when Wood later hurt his foot, which caused further mechanical inconsistency as he worked through the ache, but mainly, Wood wanted to get his arm slot back to where it had been. He was never one to pitch over the top, but as his performance declined, Wood’s left arm dropped lower and lower.
About that! In early March, we had Wood’s words. Now that it’s later March, we have Wood on the mound.
I’m an optimistic player evaluator, and I recognize that. I try to see the good in what players can do, so I liked the Orioles’ idea of signing Hyun-soo Kim out of Korea. Now, Kim has not had a good spring training to this point, so he hasn’t made the best first impression. He also probably hasn’t made his last impression, but I certainly wasn’t expecting to see this headline from Ken Rosenthal:
This is something the Orioles have done before. A headline on Orioles.com says the team dismissed the report, but this post from Eduardo A. Encina makes it sound like Kim is indeed on the outside looking in. The Orioles might at least try to send Kim to the minors. In part, that’s because Kim hasn’t looked good, and he was hitless through his first 23 at-bats. Kim has to know he hasn’t yet been impressive. But there’s another factor — a surprising one — and that factor goes by the name of Joey Rickard. Rickard came to camp just hoping to make the roster, but based on the circumstances, he might become an outfield starter.
Below, the Mets get the coveted #1. Not that they don’t deserve it, but as you’ll see, or as you can see in that plot, the Mets and the Dodgers are tied. So maybe that’s kind of a bummer, because it’s more fun to have ties broken, but this does leave the door open to arguments. Nothing quite as healthy for a person as Internet arguments. Especially about statistical projections of the unknowable future.
Mainly, the right thing to do here is think about tiers, and less about specific ranks. The Mets and Dodgers are separated from third place by more than a full win. There’s more than a win between fifth and sixth, and there’s a win between sixth and seventh. Then there’s one win between eighth and 14th. There’s a half-win between ninth and 14th. Many of these teams are close to one another, so don’t fret too much about how this is organized. Really, don’t fret too much at all, about anything. I know I just encouraged you to argue earlier in this introduction, but I’ve had a change of heart. Don’t: do that. Do: read what follows! Let’s talk about the 15 best rotations, as we see them.
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: Hello friends
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| 9:05 |
: Welcome to baseball chat
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| 9:06 |
: To think, one week from now, we will finally still have spring training
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: Also, it feels weird to me that on Sunday, April 3, we’ll have three home openers, and one spring-training contest
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| 9:07 |
: Anyway. Chatting!
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| 9:07 |
: Please tell me the D’Backs have a Plato and Aristotle coming through the pipeline as well!
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When we’ve written about the Diamondbacks this offseason, we’ve highlighted their seeming lack of depth, behind the stars. They appeared to be in position to give too much playing time to potential zeroes, potential zeroes like Yasmany Tomas. Tomas, of course, cost the Diamondbacks a fortune, and he remains plenty young and capable of turning things around, but he’s coming off a terrible season. You don’t want to guarantee anything to that kind of player. Turns out, the Diamondbacks don’t need to.
Some years ago, you easily could’ve argued Paul Goldschmidt was the most underrated player in baseball. Later on, A.J. Pollock became maybe the most underrated player in baseball, and then, David Peralta looked super underrated, and Ender Inciarte looked the same. Maybe there’s enough here to call it a pattern. And, now the team has a new candidate. He hasn’t proven anything yet, so he’s not underrated on the Peralta or Inciarte level, but it’s time to look out for Socrates Brito. All anyone cared about was the name. It’s become time to care about the player.
Early next week, our Positional Power Rankings are going to turn to the pitching staffs. I’m slated to write about the top 15 starting rotations, and if I were to begin writing that piece now, I’d end up discussing how the Dodgers have the best starting rotation in the game. This is a controversial statement, because the Dodgers are built upon fragility, and they’ve already had something like 27 pitchers injured. How could the Dodgers possibly have a better rotation than, say, the Mets? The Mets roll four or five deep. They have three could-be aces. It’s easy to love the Mets; it’s correct to love the Mets. The argument for the Dodgers is that they have plenty of depth, and it’s also — importantly — that they have Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw’s not hurt, and Kershaw is basically two aces in one. No rotation has a better starting point.
I’ll write about that next week. I’ll write about it using many of the same words. When ranking the best groups, I think people have a bias toward even spreads over something more top-heavy. All of this here also functions as a spoiler. The PPR series runs down the rankings at every individual position, but a question a lot of people like to debate is, which team has baseball’s best outfield? We’ve had this conversation before, a year ago or something, when fans would compare and contrast the Marlins and the Pirates. Those remain two very good outfields. Yet based on what we have on FanGraphs, baseball’s best projected outfield for 2016 will play half its games in Anaheim.
Last season, Billy Butler ran into 10 outs. If you didn’t know that before, you definitely know that now. And if you’re anything like me, now that you know that, you want to know what happened. Boy have I got the post for you. It’s this post!
I remember writing an article a few years ago about Michael Bourn. The article was built around something I’d seen on the ESPN Home Run Tracker. I didn’t think of Bourn as being a strong hitter. You don’t think of Bourn as being a strong hitter. I imagine Bourn doesn’t even think of himself as being a strong hitter. But he hit this one home run, off Jeff Suppan in April 2009. According to the website, the homer went 457 feet, which is 31 feet longer than any other Bourn homer in his big-league career. The way I interpreted that, it hinted at Bourn’s absolute power ceiling. He doesn’t spend a lot of time around his ceiling, of course, but you can’t really fake such a big dinger. It was interesting to me, at least — interesting enough that I haven’t forgotten about it.
I was reminded of that research and article by something Peter O’Brien just did.
There’s a stat on here we don’t talk very much about. It’s a stat that measures double-play value, above or below average, and it’s folded in with the baserunning numbers. It goes by wGDP, and for hitters, a positive number is good, and a negative number is bad. Here’s something about the stat that shouldn’t surprise you: Over the last three years combined, the worst hitter in baseball by double-play value has been Billy Butler, at -10.5 runs. It’s good to make sure advanced numbers mostly agree with your impressions, because that confirms the numbers aren’t imaginary. As double plays go, Butler has everything working against him. So, yeah.
Now I have a quiz for you. You’re given that, since 2013, Butler comes in last by this measure. Who do you suppose is second-to-last? Think about this carefully before you answer. Think about what would cause a player to hurt his team the most via double plays. Think about playing time, and lineup position. I shouldn’t give you any more clues. Here’s the quiz, with all of one question:
Are you all done? Great. Everyone who voted is wrong. The answer is Jose Altuve.