This past Tuesday night against Oakland — just as there have been at other times this season — Trevor Bauer showed glimpses of the bat-missing strikeout artist he can be, the top-of-the rotation potential he’s possessed since departing UCLA with Tim Lincecum-like Pac-12 numbers and starter-kit stuff.

Bauer set a career high with 14 strikeouts against the A’s on Tuesday, and he has a career-high strikeout percentage (29.2%) and strikeout-walk rate differential (22.1 points) this season — nearly doubling his career rate (12.4-point K-BB%) by that measure.

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“It’s like a boxer who is always trying to lead the guy into his straight. You have to manipulate him with your footwork. Same type of thing in baseball. You have to figure out a way to funnel [the pitcher] into your hot zone. That comes with patience and that comes with accepting or realizing there will be some error on their side.

“It’s almost like as a hitter you have to be a counter puncher. The best way to be a counter puncher is just to sit and wait and absorb and then counter with whatever you think your strength is.”

—Joey Votto to David Manel, last September

CLEVELAND – Baseball is an unusual team sport in that the defense possess the ball. Pitchers have the advantage of dictating the action, the location, and type of pitch. But the idea articulated by Votto in the epigraph above is fascinating, this idea of “funneling,” of batters influencing pitchers. It led me to Votto’s locker in the corner of the visiting clubhouse at Progressive Field last week.

A willing and introspective Votto is a great resource if you’re interested in discussing the art of hitting. I suppose it’s akin to having access to this generation’s Ted Williams. I was curious to learn more about this idea of dictating action from the batter’s box, imposing will from there, to learn more about Votto’s renowned selective aggressiveness. Votto leads baseball in the ratio of swings on pitches in zone compared to swings out of the zone as Ben Lindbergh noted recently. But I was particularly curious to speak with Votto because it seems like several of the game’s best young hitters are following elements of Votto’s approach. With the data-density charts that have become available in recent years, we can now see what maturation, what selective aggressiveness, looks like.

Miguel Sano has become a fearsome hitter because he’s more selective. It appears as though he’s looking in a smaller area to do damage this year. While Bryce Harper declined to discuss his approach, he also appears to be having great success by zeroing in. And there was, of course, the great April surprise that was Eric Thames, who credits his success in part to taking advantage of idle hours in South Korea where he learned to be selectively aggressive, or perhaps and even more refined version of that philosophy that Votto dubbed “funneling.”

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As one of the flag bearers of the fly-ball revolution — or the air-ball revolution as Daniel Murphy has suggested rebranding it — I thought it would be appropriate to check in on the status of the batted-ball trends after we’ve reached a stabilization point for air balls. And for many regular position players, we have reached a stabilization points for line-drive, fly-ball, and ground-ball rates.

I provided an update midway through April after a barrage of posts about the subject this spring.

Across the majors, fly balls (35.7%) are up 1.1 percentage points from last season and 1.9 points from 2015*. Ground-ball rate (44.3%) is down slightly and at its lowest level since 2011. Ground balls are down from 0.4 points from last season and 1.0 point from 2015. In an industry always looking for an extra 2%, the emergence of even slightly a slightly higher air-ball rate might be indicative of something — particularly since pitches in the bottom part of the strike zone have increased by more than three points this season. Those are pitches that should be even more difficult to lift.

*Numbers entering play Monday.

Moreover, average launch angle is up a tick (to 10.9 degrees) this season, compared to 10.8 degrees last season and 10.0 degrees in 2015, launch angle on pitches in the lower third of the strike zone has increased from 5.1 degrees in 2015, to 5.8 degrees in 2016, to 6.0 degrees this season, according to Statcast data.

While the slight increase in air balls league wide is perhaps explained by something else — or perhaps by many other things — or is perhaps just the product of random variance, there are definitely individual batters who’ve made a concerted effort to changing their swing planes. Which players, specifically, have meaningful altered their batted-ball distributions?

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Yasmani Grandal and I will be forever connected.

Despite his paltry traditional offensive numbers a year ago — including a .229 batting average, 49 runs scored, and 72 runs batted in — I placed Grandal seventh on my NL MVP ballot. I was the only writer to cast a vote for Grandal. I wrote about why I did this back in January when I was still new on the job here at FanGraphs. In summary, I gave a lot of value to Grandal’s framing, batting eye, and power from each side of the plate.

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Strategy in the game of baseball has always evolved. As it pertains to pitcher usage, that evolution has been particularly swift over the last few decades. The four-man rotations of the 1950s and ’60s morphed into five-man groups in the ’70s and early ’80s. The 200-inning season has become increasingly rare in more recent seasons. Bullpens have become more specialized and diverse. In part due to the frequency of injury among pitchers in today’s game, teams and individual players have become more curious about prevention and efficiency.

My best guess, and I am hardly alone in this thinking this, is that the future of pitching-staff organization will eventually look much different. The structure will perhaps begin with tandem starters as part of four- or three-man rotations, or the rotations will be extended to six-man rotations. Perhaps there will be a battle of ideas and practices.

While 25-man rosters limit creativity, the new 10-day DL has allowed teams to experiment, and the Dodgers — as was forecast before the season by many — have best taken advantage of the truncated disabled list. The Dodgers entered the season with the greatest number of quality rotation options in the game, and that depth came with plenty of talented but risky options like Rich Hill, Scott Kazmir, and Brandon McCarthy. The Dodgers were the first natural test case and Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci procured an interesting quote from a Dodgers official while reporting on the club’s pitching strategy in 2017:

“There’s no team that has the kind of depth we do,” said one club source. “This team is built to win 95 games on the strength of depth carrying us over six months. We should get to 95 wins. But the year comes down to this: Clayton, Richie and Julio being healthy and ready to go to start playoff games. That’s it. So if it means they throw 170 innings instead of 200, that’s fine. They’ll actually be better for it.”

The disabled list has always been loosely governed. It’s always been used as a roster-manipulation tool in addition to a place to earnestly store injured players. And the 10-day DL certainly hasn’t ended that. As Eno Sarris noted last week, days spent on DL this year are up about 50% compared to the 2011-15 five-year average.

Wrote Sarris:

The positive spin on this situation is that maybe, once the dust settles, we’ll see some reduction in days lost. Players can take a 10-day breather in a situation where they would have previously attempted to return too early. Maybe a little bit of preventative rest will reduce the amount of catastrophic injury. Trips up, days down might be the slogan.

But that’s a maybe. In the meantime, we’re left a very real explosion of unavailable players. And a few teams that are perhaps superior at manipulating that rule change and new situation, whether due to resources or superior preparation.

And perhaps thanks to resources, and superior preparation, the Dodgers are leading the way in a practice that is surely to be copy catted — if it works. And it is working: the Dodgers lead baseball in fewest runs allowed per nine innings by starting pitchers (3.59 runs). They’re one of three teams with starting rotations allowing fewer than four runs per nine innings. Sure, having Clayton Kershaw helps. But the Dodgers ranked fifth last season in the majors in runs per game from starters (3.94), they allowed 3.67 in 2015, second in MLB, and 2014 (3.81), when the Dodgers ranked 10th and the game was still in a modern dead-ball era.

To date this season, the Dodgers have never pitched more effectively in the Andrew Friedman Era, and Kershaw is just getting his slider back.

And while a number of factors could be at work, this is also the first year of the 10-day DL, and the Dodgers are leading MLB in something else: the number of starts made by starters on more than four days of rest. Consider the leaders in “Long Days Rest”, tracked by Baseball Reference:

In 2014, the Dodgers ranked 11th in starts made on four days rest or more (85). The league average was 83. In 2015, Dodgers starters made 83 such starts. The league average that season was 84. Last season, the Dodgers jumped to second (103), and the league average jumped to 87. This season, they’re on pace to shatter that mark, with 130 such starts, while the league average will grow to near 90. In 1990, the league average was 55. In 1970, it was 45.

And the Dodgers aren’t just giving their starters more rest between starts; they’re also limiting them to 87 pitchers per start, tied for the third fewest in the majors.

The Dodgers represent an interesting experiment this year: never in the history of game will a staff have been as well rested throughout a season — or, presumably, entering the postseason.

While the Rich Hills and Kenta Maedas and Alex Woods are receiving more rest and trips to the DL, Kershaw is also receiving more time between starts. He’s already made six starts on more than four days rest, according to Baseball Reference. The most such starts he’s made in a season was 17 in 2011.

The Dodgers are creating a de facto six-man rotation. If this experiment works, if the team plans for it and has the depth for it, perhaps it will become a new model going forward.

In theory, a four- or three-man tandem rotation makes a lot of sense. Starting pitchers are less effective each time they work through a stating lineup, and a team can more often create platoon advantages by flipping to an opposite-handed tandem starter. (And in the NL, for as long as DH doesn’t exist, pitchers will less often bat.) But in speaking with executives, coaches, and players on the subject, the problems with the idea include how it would stretch a staff, the limited roster spots available, and when the plan blows up on a given day. If a pitcher fails to log his innings, it really stresses a roster.

So while the piggyback rotation is ideal in theory — and could perhaps become a reality with a combination of expended rosters and a 10-day DL — perhaps it’s the six-man rotation, or some sort of 10-day DL-enabled variety, that will eventually win the day.

If a fresh Dodgers rotation rolls through October, it will be a model to be copied.

The television camera changes everything. Imagine being broadcast at work, at school, at your local coffee shop or bar, or wherever you spend most of your time in public. Were every move to be recorded, one’s behavior (I presume) would be inclined to change. My behavior certainly would. I would want the world most often to see the best of me. It’s human nature to be liked, to be accepted, to avoid controversy.

So it was quite unusual to see Buster Posey become so publicly annoyed with a teammate on Saturday because (a) we rarely see players exhibit such emotion on television and (b) Posey’s public face is generally one of mild-mannered tranquility.

But Posey isn’t accustomed to this much losing. He knows that the Giants are in a tough spot, already 10 games back in the NL West and seven games under .500, with the Rockies and Diamondbacks looking like legitimate postseason contenders in addition to the favored Dodgers. The Giants are, of course, also without their ace Madison Bumgarner. Perhaps Posey’s tolerance threshold for nonsense and mental errors — and this is pure speculation — has been diminished.

So in the ninth inning Saturday night, Posey lost any concern for appearances. He had enough with Brandon Belt apparently zoning out and failing to keep the runner — in this case, Stephen Piscotty — close to the bag. Piscotty went on to steal second in a relatively close game. Always pay attention to Buster.

Despite knowing that every movement is being documented, Posey didn’t hide his indignation and wait for the privacy of the clubhouse to protect a teammate from public rebuke:

This isn’t the face of a pleased catcher:

Nor was this the first instance of on-field discord between Posey and Belt — a point noted by longtime Giants beat writer Henry Schulman noted after the game:

Matt Carpenter flied out to end the game, Belt gave Posey an icy stare in the handshake line, after which Posey apparently turned to say something to the first baseman.

This was not the first time the cameras caught Posey expressing displeasure with Belt.

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My wife is a school psychologist here in the Pittsburgh area, so naturally I learn about the profession and the field. One test of interest, and some amusement, that she’s discussed involves children and the concept of delayed gratification. Testers use all sorts of sugar-laden incentives for the evaluation. The tester presents a child with a cookie or chocolate or something else and informs the four-year-old that, after a short period of time, if the child can avoid the temptation to indulge in the first snack, that said child will receive a second. (I’m not sure such a test of will power would be all that easy for adults, either.)

The study, I believe, traces its origins to the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment conduced in the late 1960s by psychologist Walter Mischel. The kids tested were given one marshmallow, and then a second if they were able to endure about a 15-minute wait. Follow-up studies found that the children who were able to wait generally had better life-outcomes, though the experiment is not without their critics. The Atlantic revisited the study in 2014:

Studies showed that a child’s ability to delay eating the first treat predicted higher SAT scores and a lower body mass index (BMI) 30 years after their initial Marshmallow Test. Researchers discovered that parents of “high delayers” even reported that they were more competent than “instant gratifiers”—without ever knowing whether their child had gobbled the first marshmallow.

While such a study and its small sample is, of course, imperfect, I think reasonable people can agree there are many merits to delayed gratification for children and adults.

So that brings me to the New York Yankees. The club is somewhat surprisingly resides in first place in the AL East more than a quarter of the way through the season, and boasts of the second-best run-differential in the American League (+53), trailing only the Astros (+58). BaseRuns suggests the Yankees actually deserve to be a game better than their actual standing (27-16).

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So much is going well for the Yankees. Aaron Judge has exceeded everyone’s expectations. Aaron Hicks has found another level. Top prospect Gleyber Torres has been promoted to Triple-A. Luis Severino has a 21.1-point K-BB% mark. Michael Pineda owns an even better 24.5-point K-BB% mark — and finally has some better BABIP luck to go with his elite swing-and-miss stuff. Many believe, including this author, that it’s better than even odds that we will see Bryce Harper somewhere in the Yankee outfield in 2019. If feels like the next Yankee dynasty is taking shape.

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While the save statistic and closer role are slowly being de-valued at the major league level, it’s still a significant statistic in your roto league. And of all the early-season turnover at the position, Brewers reliever is Corey Knebel is one of the more interesting arms to occupy the ninth inning. Regardless of role, in real-life baseball, he’s become one of the more interesting relief arms in the game. A FanGraphs reader in yesterday’s chat suggested Knebel might worthy of a post, and I am here to serve. Read the rest of this entry »