So, things might be getting out of hand…
Also, Bud Norris has been activated. #Angels have 14 relievers.
— Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) September 6, 2017
A lot of folks inside and outside the game don’t care for September roster expansion. After all, why play the game one way for five months, with one set of roster rules, and then in the most crucial month of the season change the limits of rosters?
Full disclosure: as you might be aware, I authored a book on the Pirates — Big Data Baseball — which was published in 2015. As a result, it’s possible that I write this piece with some bias.
Still, I wouldn’t have entered into that book project if I thought the Pittsburgh Pirates were run by fools, engaged in uninteresting practices, and set for a catastrophic 2014 season. To work on the project, I had to believe the Pirates were a team likely to enjoy more success.
I pitched the book following the 2013 campaign, after the Pirates’ first winning season since 1992. I felt it was a compelling narrative: the Pirates ended the longest consecutive streak of losing seasons in North American pro sports history by residing on the cutting edge of analytics and innovating new practices (like having a quant embedded in the clubhouse) while also remaining attentive to the human element. It was a story of creativity, collaboration, and peak Andrew McCutchen.
With the spread throughout baseball of wearable technology — that is, devices like the Zephyr Bioharness which are capable of capturing all manner of physiological data — it’s tempting to consider everything that teams and players could possibly extract from the information that’s gathered.
While such technology is currently used to monitor mostly fatigue and workload via calorie consumption — noted foodie Russell Martin employed the Bioharness in Pittsburgh to better understand how much he could eat without gaining weight — there are certainly other possible areas for innovation. Like, what more can we learn from heart rate in the midst of performance? Could we better understand performance under stress? How emotions influence play?
There have been 23 perfect games in major-league history but only 18 four-homer games.
While we’d expect to see the quantity of the latter increase during a home-run spike like the one baseball is currently experiencing, the four-homer game remains one of the rarest individual, single-game achievements of which a player is capable. Perhaps the only rarer deeds are the 20-strikeout game (accomplished five times) and unassisted triple play (recorded 15 times in major-league history).
J.D. Martinez, as you’re probably aware, became the 18th player to produce a four-homer game this Monday. He became just the third one to reach the mark against four different pitchers.
Only six players have hit four homers in a game since the start of the 21st century. Mike Cameron (May 2, 2002), Shawn Green (May 23, 2002), Carlos Delgado (Sept. 25, 2003), Josh Hamilton (May 8, 2012), and Scooter Gennett (June 6 of this year) represent the other five. While Gennett is the unlikeliest player in the modern era to accomplish the feat, Martinez is also an unlikely candidate — if you account for the unusual path he’s taken to stardom.
More immediately, the four-homer game renders even more puzzling the lack of interest in Martinez’s services at the deadline — and, perhaps, helps his case en route to the free-agent market, hinting that this is a hitter who’s still improving.
In the age of the shift, it takes a lot for a particular defensive alignment to merit real attention.
But over the weekend, the Diamondbacks managed to do just that, utilizing what appears to be the most dramatic shift in recent history — notable even more so because the park at which they did it, Coors Field, features one of the game’s largest outfields.
We’ve seen about every variety of infield shift over the last four years, but we’ve never witnessed anything quite like what the Diamondbacks employed against DJ LeMahieu.
That gets your attention. That is bold.
There has been a changing of the guard in the American League as we have a new run differential leader: The Cleveland Indians (+155).
The Indians, thanks to an outstanding August, have jumped the Houston Astros (+153), the AL’s top club of the first half, and have possession of the game’s No. 2 run differential, trailing only the Los Angeles Dodgers (+209). The Indians completed a 19-9 record for August with a sweep of the Yankees on Wednesday, and posted a plus-58 run differential for the month. Read the rest of this entry »
As FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron wrote Wednesday, we are seeing fewer “bewildering” transactions in baseball these days. Many teams are thinking in similar ways, hiring similar people, and using similar information to make decisions. While that makes for more efficient decision making, it also makes for fewer controversial and/or head-scratching decisions.
While relatively minor in scope, we were given an unusual transaction when the Pirates — who have fallen out of contention — elected to place Juan Nicasio on irrevocable outright waivers this week, not revocable waivers, which teams usually employ this time of year to pass players through waivers but are able to pull them back if claimed. Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier this season, there was a disagreement between Adrian Beltre and myself about how long I was permitted to remain in the visiting clubhouse at Progressive Field. I was there waiting on one of Beltre’s teammates (now ex-Ranger Jonathan Lucroy). The rest of the modestly sized media contingent had departed and the media-relations representative was nowhere to be found. I was the last reporter remaining. Beltre asked from his locker about 20 feet away why I was still in the clubhouse. He suggested I leave.
I motioned toward the time on the wall-mounted digital clock and explained I had a few minutes remaining. I have rights as a BBWAA card holder! He disagreed. Feeling outnumbered, feeling now as something of a trespasser — and preferring to fight another day and over something more significant — I attempted to depart the clubhouse with my dignity.
Hey, remember this guy?
It was Greg Bird, not Aaron Judge or Gary Sanchez, who was the talk of Yankees camp while producing eight home runs and a 1.654 OPS over 51 at-bats. It was Bird who seemed poised to build upon a promising 178-plate-appearance sample as a rookie in 2015 (.261/.343/.529 slash line and 137 wRC+) after missing all of 2016 with a labrum tear.
I was in the Dodgers clubhouse before a game last week at PNC Park when the Sports Illustrated cover was released featuring Justin Turner immersed in Gatorade, the orange liquid nearly a match for the hue of his iconic mane and facial hair.
The amiable Turner was of particular interest that day due to his cover-boy status. He accommodated round after round of media interviews before his locker in the road clubhouse. The Dodgers have perhaps the largest traveling media contingent in the National League.
I waited not for not an interview but an introduction. As someone who has promoted the Air Ball Revolution, I wanted to express my appreciation for his work and to note our mutual acquaintance, private hitting instructor Doug Latta, who helped Turner rebuild his swing and philosophy. In passing, I asked Turner not about the photo (which is tremendous), but about a passage from the accompanying article by Stephanie Apstein.
[Justin Turner] persuaded a fringe major leaguer with a career .598 OPS to spend last offseason overhauling his mechanics; Chris Taylor, now a starting outfielder, has been L.A.’s best second-half hitter, with an OPS of 1.105. Since Turner assigned right fielder Puig five pushups for every grounder he hit in spring training, Puig has pounded the ball harder than in any season since his first. Turner cues up the curveball machine and challenges 22-year-old rookie first baseman Cody Bellinger to fly ball competitions, with the winner taking home $10 per session. “I’m down a little bit,” Bellinger admits. It’s worth the lighter wallet, though: His .800 slugging percentage on curves is second in baseball. The team as a whole has cut its ground ball rate by 8%, the biggest drop in the league.
I’ve previously explored the idea of how air-ball advocates like Daniel Murphy might influence teammates in positive way, how they might be adding value simply by communicating ideas.
Turner is another.
