| 9:06 |
: Hello friends |
| 9:06 |
: Welcome to Friday baseball chat |
| 9:06 |
: The Astros seem to have their offensive mojo back. How scared should the league be? |
| 9:07 |
: I was just looking at something yesterday |
| 9:07 |
: I calculated every team’s total negative WAR |
| 9:07 |
: The Astros are at -0.1 — just Jake Marisnick |
Leading off the bottom of the first inning on Wednesday, Harrison Bader worked a full count against Eric Lauer and hit a single up the middle. In a matchup between two promising National League rookies, Bader appeared to have the upper hand. Tommy Pham stepped in and saw a first-pitch strike, and then the Cardinals TV broadcast said the following:
One thing to keep in mind — Lauer has a tremendous pickoff move. He has picked off four in four consecutive games.
[pause]
Now five.
That quickly, Bader was erased. Eric Lauer has picked off a runner five games in a row. This is just the fifth time that’s known to have happened in major-league history, and this active streak is a Padres franchise record. The major-league leader in pickoffs in 2016 had six. The major-league leader in pickoffs in 2017 had seven. Lauer already has seven in 2018. He’s two ahead of anyone else, even though he’s thrown just 45 innings. Sure, if you wanted to be critical, you could say that Lauer has given himself plenty of pickoff opportunities. But he’s been a baserunner-erasing machine. When Lauer is on the mound, every runner has to be careful.
Recently, I wrote an article about the very surprising Max Muncy. That was published on June 4, which is only about a week and a half ago. The way this tends to work, we write articles about players when we can’t ignore their hot streaks anymore, and then, invariably, regression sets in. Not so, in this case. At least, not yet. Since June 4, Muncy has batted 31 times. He has eight walks and ten hits, four of which have left the yard. Muncy has actually gone deep four games in a row.
Muncy didn’t even figure into our preseason Dodgers depth chart. I doubt the Dodgers were thinking too much about him, either. Muncy was projected by both Steamer and ZiPS as a below-replacement player. Well, he’s come to the plate 157 times, and out of everyone with 150 plate appearances, Muncy ranks third in baseball in wRC+, behind only Mookie Betts and Mike Trout. The picture, according to expected wOBA, is only a little bit different — within the same player pool, Muncy ranks fifth, between Freddie Freeman and Joey Votto. The numbers are spectacular, and the size of the sample is only growing.
If you’re like me, then, before Tuesday, you didn’t know the name Stu Scheurwater. We all know the names of some umpires, and maybe you know the names of most umpires, but it’s almost impossible to keep track of all of them. Scheurwater, previously, wasn’t anywhere on my radar. And honestly, that’s probably a good thing, since we get to know umpires in the first place because they do something that ticks us off. We don’t seize many opportunities to congratulate umpires for a job well done. In that way they’re kind of like closers — their success is almost assumed. They’re supposed to get it right. They can’t always do that. Every little mistake makes thousands of people upset.
I’d like to take this moment to applaud Scheurwater’s performance. One call in particular has placed him on my good side. Scheurwater didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to do. He simply followed the rule book, which is much of an umpire’s job. Yet many other umpires wouldn’t have made the same decision. When it comes to how baseball is played, I don’t have many strong opinions. I’m open to the pitch clock, I’m open to changing the mound, and I don’t care either way about the DH. With Brandon Nimmo at the plate Tuesday, Scheurwater called a ball. I strongly believe any such sequence should be called the same way.
Let me share with you a familiar-sounding story. As a rookie back in 2016, Zach Eflin wasn’t good. There were 181 starting pitchers that year who threw at least 50 innings, and only two of them wound up with a lower strikeout rate than Eflin did. And then as a sophomore in 2017, Eflin wasn’t good. There were 189 starting pitchers that year who threw at least 50 innings, and only four of them wound up with a lower strikeout rate than Eflin did. Yes, there’s more to pitching in the major leagues than generating strikeouts, but Eflin didn’t have anything going in his favor. So he showed up to camp this past spring feeling especially optimistic. In February of 2018, Zach Eflin felt like he was in the best shape of his life.
Admittedly, the story had some substance. Eflin had felt knee pain for most of his life. After the 2016 season, he had surgery to repair the patella tendon in both of his legs. That was good for the pain, but bad for his strength. Eflin didn’t get to have a normal offseason, and he pitched while underweight. The idea this time around was that Eflin would be able to use his lower body. Over the winter, he added something like 20 pounds of muscle to his legs. It all sounded good. But then, best-shape stories always sound good. In the moment, it’s impossible to know who’s going to be better, and who’s going to be the same.
Well, Zach Eflin isn’t the same. He isn’t the same, for the reasons just stated. He’s got the same strikeout rate as Chris Archer. He’s got the same strikeout rate as Jose Quintana. He nearly has the same strikeout rate as Aaron Nola. Eflin is pitching to keep a rotation spot. But in the bigger picture, it’s like Eflin is debuting all over again. His career simply had a false start.
| 9:08 |
: Hello friends |
| 9:08 |
: Sorry sorry! Podcasting! |
| 9:08 |
: Welcome to Friday baseball chat |
| 9:08 |
: I know they’re completely independent, but the Caps make me feel better about the Nats chances this year. Is that sports? |
| 9:09 |
: That’s sports |
| 9:09 |
: It also shows the power of the narratives we make up about them to make them more interesting |
It feels like it’s been a little time since I wrote about the strike zone. As such, it’s time to go back to the well, to a piece I get to write every season. To kick it off, how about a mention of the incredible, improbable Tyler Chatwood? Through a dozen starts, Chatwood is sitting on a sub-4 ERA. And he’s allowed only one unearned run, so, in a way, he’s already paying off. And yet, over 58.1 innings, Chatwood has 53 strikeouts and a genuinely unbelievable 56 walks. He’s running what would stand as one of the very highest walk rates in all of baseball history, and he’s routinely struggled to throw even half of his pitches for strikes. Related to this, the Cubs’ pitching staff has baseball’s highest team walk rate. The White Sox are next. The Indians’ walk rate is the lowest.
The strike zone itself is a funny thing. It is, of course, supposed to change for every hitter, depending on their height or stance, but the zone is fundamental to the game. Everything revolves around the strike zone, and there’s nothing in the rule book that would suggest that one team should get a different zone from another. But we know the team-to-team zones aren’t consistent. We actually sometimes celebrate the pitchers and catchers who can manipulate the zone to their benefit. Teams end up with friendly zones, and teams end up with less friendly zones. The zones can affect strikeouts, the zones can affect walks — the zones can affect records. It’s a part of the game we currently just have to accept.
Accept and acknowledge. Accept and observe! Accept and analyze. With the way the game is played in 2018, it’s a given that all the zones end up being a little bit different. Which teams this year have been happy about their zones? Which teams might have reason to complain? I’ve got a couple tables for you. You can skip all the words if you want. It’s only the numbers that matter.
Yesterday was a pretty good day for hitters on the comeback trail. Jason Heyward blasted a walk-off grand slam. Matt Kemp hit another home run. Ian Desmond hit another home run. Jurickson Profar hit another two home runs. And Pablo Sandoval hit his own home run. With the Giants, Sandoval’s been only a part-time player, but over 112 trips to the plate, he’s posted a 115 wRC+. He hasn’t finished as an above-average hitter since 2014.
Let’s take a closer look at Wednesday’s game. Sandoval homered in the bottom of the first. Before that, though, he took the first pitch from Clay Buchholz. In the third inning, he again took the first pitch from Buchholz. In the fifth inning, he again took the first pitch from Buchholz. In the eighth inning, he took the first pitch from Archie Bradley. In the tenth inning, he took the first pitch from Andrew Chafin. Stick with me here, because this is going to get weird. This is bigger than you could imagine.
Is it even necessary to go over the background? I will quickly go over the background. Back in 2014, there was mounting concern that baseball no longer featured enough offense. Pitching had taken over, and we saw run-scoring plummet. Strikeouts, as you know, have only continued to go up over time, but that’s been countered by a sudden spike in home runs. There were 723 more home runs in 2015 than there were in 2014. There were 701 more home runs in 2016 than there were in 2015. There were 495 more home runs in 2017 than there were in 2016. Compared to 2014, the number of home runs hit in 2017 was up by a staggering 46%. That’s what baseball became — a showcase for the three true outcomes. Strikeouts and homers were in.
The surge in power made some people happy. It made other people sad. The remaining people were indifferent observers of a changing game. No matter your opinion, we were all left to wonder: now what? Would the power surge continue? Would the ball continue to fly? Would more and more batters continue to swing up, enthusiastically trading contact for dingers? It’s easy to observe a trend that’s already in the books. It’s more difficult to know where it’s going. Most of the time, anyway.
And in this case, I’ve given it away with the headline. What’s become of the home-run spike in 2018? There’s been, to be sure, no shortage of dingers. But the home-run count isn’t going up. It’s actually taken a step backward. Whether it’s signal or whether it’s noise, the home-run spike isn’t spiking.
The Dodgers are now back to having as many wins as losses. That’s not anything amazing — it has them tied with the Pirates — but as recently as May 16, the Dodgers were 16-26. Their most recent win was a five-run decision in Pittsburgh. Leading the way was Ross Stripling, who got the start and spun five shutout innings. He didn’t walk a batter, and he struck out seven. Back in March, the Dodgers wouldn’t have imagined they’d be here. Stripling’s start, though, was a representative one.
I’ve been on something of a Dodgers theme lately. That’s a coincidence, but then, the Dodgers’ early story is compelling. They haven’t gotten much from their supposed best players, and they’ve been lifted by a handful of surprises. The other day, I wrote about the surprising Max Muncy. Tuesday, I wrote about the surprising Matt Kemp. Now it’s time to write about the surprising Ross Stripling. When I woke up yesterday, Kemp was the Dodgers’ team leader in WAR. Stripling has now taken over the spot. Not bad for someone expected to pitch out of the bullpen.