I love it when research underlines conventional wisdom. Like when Mitchel Lichtman found that, the more pitches a pitcher had in his arsenal, the better his chances the third time through the order. Even if it was only on the order of a few points of weighted on base average, it was a real finding that functions as a virtual nod towards all those scouts and pitching coaches who’ve wondered about a pitchers’ third and fourth options. You might not need a changeup specifically, but you need other pitches if just to put more doubt in the hitter’s mind.

Given that finding, I thought it might be fun to try and use it in reverse. Who were the worst pitchers in baseball last season when it came to the third time through the order? Who saw their talent drop off the most upon seeing a batter the third time?

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, the Colorado Rockies traded right-hander Eddie Butler to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for a modestly promising relief prospect (James Farris) and the 28th international bonus slot.

Even as recently as last year, the notion of such a move would have seemed improbable. Butler appeared twice — as recently as 2015 — on Baseball America’s top-100 prospects list. The Rockies’ rotation, meanwhile, has been quite poor, producing the second-lowest collective WAR in the majors over the last five years. They haven’t been a club, in other words, that had the luxury of giving up on a promising young pitcher.

But Colorado’s rotation has improved rapidly, while Butler’s stock has declined just as quickly. In the end, general manager Jeff Bridich concluded there wasn’t space on the roster for Eddie Butler. He made a deal.

But this isn’t just a late-January transaction that ought to be forgotten. Because Butler has shown promise. Let’s instead follow his story up to this point. He deserves it after toiling in Coors for so long, and it might provide us a glimpse of his future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The easiest yes you’ll get in sports is by asking anyone on the field if spring training should be shorter. They agree almost unanimously. The players especially think so, since they’ve been working all offseason, too. The days of coming into town 15 pounds overweight and stepping on the mound or to the plate for the first time in months — those are long gone. Players have been working since after Thanksgiving, and maybe even earlier in some cases.

Players like Jason Heyward, who just came off the worst year of his career with the bat, might have been working even harder. There’s so much to prove. At least in Heyward’s case, the problem might be obvious and the solution seems to be in hand. At least theoretically.

Read the rest of this entry »

“I’m a completely different hitter from each side of the plate,” Hank Conger told me one time. He went on to describe how he had more loft in his swing from one side. Switch-hitter Billy Burns said about the same thing, speculating that his relative lack of experience hitting from the left side was the cause for his lack of power on contact from that side. “My muscles aren’t as strong there,” he told me in July of 2015. Even if a player is capable of hitting — even hitting well — from both sides of the plate, that doesn’t mean he’s the same type of hitter from both sides. Subtle differences are bound to be present.

All of this may explain a strange thing that happened to Jonathan Villar last year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Former front-office analyst and now stats professor at Smith College Ben Baumer has a paper out, with cowriters Michael J. Lopez of Skidmore College and Gregory J. Matthews of Loyola University Chicago, that hopes to answer a question we’ve all thought about when our favorite team loses: how often does the best team win in a given sport? How much of our pain can we explain away with luck? The answers contain multitudes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Over 450 innings into his major-league career, Kyle Hendricks possesses both an ERA under 3.00 and a third-place finish in Cy Young voting. That’s impressive. Even after accounting for the regression he’s likely to experience in the future, he’s nevertheless proven himself to be an apt pitcher at the major-league level, something that we didn’t see coming as he ascended the ranks as a prospect. He’s done enough to wonder why we missed on him, and what he can teach us about other young pitchers out there.

Read the rest of this entry »

The truth about a Hall of Fame career is that there’s no single magic moment that makes it happen. There’s no way you can put together the sort of resume that ends in Cooperstown unless you make many changes along the way. Baseball is that demanding.

When it’s all over, though, there’s time for looking back and for giving thanks. Because in order to make all those adjustments, the players had to receive advice from truth-peddling coaches and players along the way. For every adjustment, there was a trusted source that helped at just the right time.

So, along with the help of Alyson Footer of MLB.com, Bill Ladson of MLB.com, and others, I asked our newest Hall of Fame trio about their path to the big leagues.

*****

Jeff Bagwell

On Power: “I think my hitting coach, Rudy Jaramillo and I – you know, when I was in the minor leagues and all that kind of stuff, I used to hit a lot of balls with back, excuse me, topspin. And then I kind of learned how to change my hands a little bit and get a little bit of backspin and all that kind of stuff, and that carried the ball…

Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Trumbo has himself the first multi-year deal of his career! He’ll be re-joining the Baltimore Orioles on a three-year deal for “under $40 million,” as Ken Rosenthal is reporting.

The slugger has to be happy about that, even if the number is a little lower than he might have expected after hitting 47 home runs last year. In July, at the All-Star Game, he was already being asked about this possible deal, and he agreed that it would be nice: “Moving your whole life year to year is not as ideal as maybe people think it is. You’d like to establish yourself and contribute to a singular team for an extended period of time if possible.”

Now he can! Will he be as good as he was this past year?

He led the league in home runs, yes, but he also set career highs in hard-hit rate, pull rate, and fly-ball rate while playing some of his better outfield defense, despite possessing an athletic skill set more suited for first base. In July, he admitted that the outfield was sometimes “daunting” but that he had to “resort to competing” as he always had.

The result was a season that made him a great fit for the Orioles on a returning deal. “If you can bring a little bit of versatility to your team, you’re that much more valuable,” he said back then. But mostly, he was signed for his bat, and all those extra hard fly balls he showed this year.

Read the rest of this entry »