Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »

Only six pitchers in the majors so far this season have thrown more innings than Cole Hamels, and his 3.03 ERA is pretty nice, too. Good start to the season for him, then, right? Well, not so fast. There are a number of indicators that paint the picture that Hamels may be in for a world of trouble in 2017.

I first was alerted to Hamels’ precarious situation by this tweet from the venerable Mike Petriello:

That’s not great, especially given how consistent Hamels has been throughout his career. The drop in swinging-strike percentage isn’t necessarily totally damning though, so I wanted to investigate further. Let’s start with some of his other plate-discipline statistics.

Most of Hamels’ plate-discipline stats are trending in the wrong direction, aside from his Z-Swing%, which hasn’t changed much the past three seasons. His Zone% is the second-lowest of his career, the lowest mark having occurred last season. His Swing% and O-Swing% are both at career lows. That’s not great, either. His Z-Contact% and Contact% are both career-worst marks, and his O-Contact% in at its highest since 2009. It’s the second-highest mark of his career. None of this is encouraging.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Hyun Soo Kim posted a .382 on-base percentage last season. He was one of just 20 players to post a .380 OBP or better (min. 300 plate appearances). As I’m sure you’re aware, that’s a pretty great mark. As I detailed a little in the positional power rankings for left field, Kim had a rocky start with the Orioles, who generally seemed not to like him very much. But by the end of the season, he was the club’s starting left fielder. He started only 78 of the team’s 162 games in left field, but he did start 40 of their final 64 there. And yet, despite ending the season as the team’s main left fielder and despite recorded a .382 OBP, he’s been buried on the bench to begin the 2017 season.

Let’s go back a second to that .382 OBP. That’s getting hard to pull off these days.

OBP is the heartbeat of an offense. So long as a club is avoiding outs, good things can happen. But it’s been a lot harder to find high-OBP figures over the past 10 years. Two years ago, for example, just eight players produced an OBP of .380 or better. It was the third-lowest total (after 1968 and 1963) since baseball integrated in 1947. Last year, only 20 batters reached that mark, which was tied for the 22nd-lowest total since Integration. The last few years, it has been very tough to find hitters who are really good at not making outs. And when teams find them, they cherish them. Here’s the list of the 20 players who pulled it off last season, and how much they’ve played this season. You’ll see one outlier.

Well, OK: two outliers, I guess. But David Ortiz voluntarily stopped playing games. Kim, on the other hand, hasn’t walked away from the sport. The Orioles simply aren’t playing him. His plate-appearance total is less than half of every other active player except Donaldson, whose total would be higher if he were healthy. They have a lot of other players to whom they’d rather give time, it seems. Joey Rickard was the favorite at this time last season, and remains on the team, despite a career .312 OBP and a negative career DRS and UZR. He’s a candidate to be the next Willie Bloomquist.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »

I got asked the question in my chat this week. Dave also got asked it in his. What do you do to solve Byron Buxton’s problems at the plate? This is essentially the question. People want to know. The answer, to me, is you let him play. It seems that we get these questions each April about a phenom struggling in his first taste of a full major league season. So while I’m writing this piece with Buxton in mind and as the lead example, it is also sort of universal.
Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »

In 2015, Chris Rusin made 22 starts for the Colorado Rockies in what was a lost season for the ballclub. They finished in last place for the third time in four seasons, and their attendance dropped to its lowest mark in eight seasons. The club possessed a promising cache of prospects. Regardless, one couldn’t be blamed for feeling pessimistic about the Rockies’ future.

Fast forward to today, and Rusin is still with the team. Instead of working in a starting capacity, though, he’s been moved to the bullpen. And rather than occupying a large role in Colorado’s rotation, he’s not even a sure thing to serve as the club’s sixth or seventh starter.

This isn’t a product of Rusin’s failings, however. He was actually pretty good last year, recording an 83 xFIP- and 76 ERA- in 84 innings of starting and relief work. Rather, the change in Rusin’s role is emblematic of a new development in the organizaion — namely, that the Rockies suddenly have a great deal of pitching depth, both in the rotation and the bullpen.

Let’s start with the most recent starting pitcher to make his major-league debut for the Rockies, Antonio Senzatela. After showing well in 2015 in his first trip through the California League, Senzatela had a very trying 2016 season. First, he missed time due to a shoulder injury. Then, his mother died from cancer back home in his native Venezuela. At the time, the Rockies used his shoulder injury as cover to let him go home and spend time with his family, which isn’t only an understandable but commendable move by the organization. But for those tasked with determining how Senzatela would stack up as a prospect heading into this season, it certainly created uncertainty, as any season-ending shoulder injury normally would. He’s still not very projectable, but he might have snuck on to the back end of Rockies’ team lists had people known why he really missed the latter portion of the season.

Fast forward to 2017, and Senzatela’s major-league debut was certainly promising. Despite hitting Keon Broxton in the face (Broxton fortunately seems to have come away from the HBP unharmed), he was otherwise brilliant on the day, striking out six batters through five scoreless innings. The result was a Game Score of 66 — and a Game Score v2 of 66 — which is pretty good for a Rockies pitcher making his major-league debut. Take a look:

Now, some of this is damning with faint praise. The Rockies haven’t had a ton of good starting pitchers, and even fewer who turned in good debuts. But it’s better than the alternative, which would have been getting rocked. Senzatela’s outing is tied for third in terms of Game Score, and by itself in sixth place according to Game Score V 2.0. Not too shabby.

Read the rest of this entry »