Editor’s Note: the following post contains spicy language.

J.D. Martinez had just concluded a chat with a Tigers beat reporter when I approached him Monday afternoon. I sensed him preparing to escape my forthcoming interview request in the Joker Marchant Stadium clubhouse as I walked in his direction. He’d just risen from the cushioned chair in front of his locker and picked up a cardboard box of personal effects as I introduced myself. His body language wasn’t suggestive of much interest in engaging in conversation with me and, to be fair, I was a stranger. We had never spoken. He had just finished playing six innings of an exhibition game and was presumably was looking forward to the rest of the day.

But then I explained why I was interested in speaking with him. He rested the box on a laundry cart, freed his hands, seemed to warm to the idea (or possibly not), and opened up.

I wanted to ask Martinez whether baseball is on the cusp of a fly-ball revolution, whether we’re about to see the sort of approach already adopted by Martinez, Josh Donaldson and Justin Turner — all of whom have experienced great personal success — become more widely adopted and accepted in the majors. Jeff Sullivan and I have written quite a bit about the potential fly-ball revolution in recent weeks as you can read here, here, here and here. But Monday offered a chance to get a key perspective from an early adopter and perhaps a significant influencer.

Read the rest of this entry »

LAKELAND, Fla. — Monday perhaps offered a glimpse of the Dylan Bundy we’ve been waiting for on a windy, sunny afternoon at Joker Marchant Stadium.

In the bottom of the first, the Orioles were so sure a bending Bundy curveball froze Nick Castellanos for a third strike that Bundy and the rest of the infield took a collective step to the visiting third-base dugout before home-plate umpire Jerry Layne signaled a strikeout.

Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps no player in Florida is the object of greater expectations this spring than Gary Sanchez.

Consider: in the fantasy baseball world, only Buster Posey is being drafted earlier at catcher. Generally conservative projection systems forecast that Sanchez will be a star this season. ZiPS pegs Sanchez for 27 homers a 112 wRC+ and a 3.4 WAR season. PECOTA’s 70th percentile outlook has Sanchez recording 33 homers, a .504 slugging mark, and 4.8 wins. And the Fans’ average crowdsourced projection for Sanchez is a .274/.344/.488 slash line and 5.4 WAR season. The Fans believe, in other words, that Sanchez and Bryce Harper are going to produce similar value this season.

Last week, ESPN ran a poll asking respondents to guess how many home runs Sanchez will hit in 2017. Fewer than 10 home runs? That option received 1% of votes. How about 10 to 20 homers — i.e. the range within which he’s resided over each of his first five professional seasons in the minors? That seems like a reasonable wager, right? Only 4% agreed.

The most popular range was 21-30 homers, receiving 44% of votes. Forty-one percent predicted he will slug between 31-40 homers, and 10% think he will hit more than 40.

There’s much to like about Sanchez. This is a player with pedigree, who was regraded as the top catcher in the 2009 international class, and perhaps the second-best bat in that class after Miguel Sano.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Personally, I prefer the DH-less game. I like when managers are forced to make more in-game decisions — in particular, when they must decide whether to allow a starting pitcher to take one last at-bat before exiting. I like that starting pitchers who are perhaps pitching too aggressively up-and-in are held accountable by stepping into the batter’s box. In an age of elevated pitching injuries, I like that the pitching spot allows pitchers a breather when working through the lineup multiple times. I like that each player who wields a bat must also wear a glove. And as a former beat writer, and as a fan of the game, I like that the game moves a little more quickly without the DH.

But it seems the adoption of the DH by the NL is inevitable, having become part of the game at the amateur level and every professional level besides the NL. Entering the most recent collective-bargaining cycle, it seemed like the DH-to-the-NL could be in play.

I bring up the DH today because Pedro Alvarez is still available. I bring up the DH today because the NL’s leading home-run hitters last season, Chris Carter, had so little appeal on the market this offseason that he considered playing in Japan before agreeing to a one-year, $3-million deal with the Yankees. I bring up the DH because Adam Lind (142 wRC+ in 2014, 119 wRC+ in 2015) settled for a one-year, $1.5-million deal with the Nationals in mid-February. I bring up the DH because, as Dave Cameron wrote earlier this offseason, the industry is not valuing bat-only players.

The players seemed to have largely kicked the can down the road in the most recent CBA. Their objectives seemed modest in nature, focused primarily on the qualifying offer. And the changes to QO compensation did mark a small victory for the union. Despite a declining share of revenues, players are nevertheless enjoying record average salaries. Perhaps the status is quo is good enough for the majority of players.

But if the union is seeking small victories, it’s a little surprising the DH wasn’t more of a focus. It didn’t seem to be a significant negotiating topic in CBA talks despite indications from Rob Manfred that there was growing interest from his perspective, and with Tony Clark suggesting that he was open to the idea when speaking with the St. Louis Post Dispatch back in 2015.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, I explored whether more MLB hitters will get off the ground to improve their offensive numbers. As background for that piece, I asked private hitting instructor Doug Latta, who believes in lifting the ball, why there has been resistance to the the uppercut swing. Latta’s philosophy helped two of his clients, Justin Turner and Marlon Byrd, become dramatically better hitters.

We know fly balls are much more valuable than ground balls. In 2016, batters hit .241 with a .715 slugging mark and a wRC+ of 139 on fly balls versus a .238 average, .258 slugging mark and of wRC+ of 27 on ground balls.

“You see a (Josh) Donaldson, you see a Turner, you hear people talking a little more. Now you can quantify [quality of contact]… But it’s still a small movement,” Latta told me. “The results speak for themselves, but you are taking on 100 years of thought.”

Latta noted how slow the game is to move from conventional thought, and there appears to be little change in GB/FB tendencies league wide.

Read the rest of this entry »

Clayton Kershaw is the best pitcher on the planet.

You’re probably aware of his ability, and his hardware, which includes three Cy Young Awards, six straight top-five Cy Young finishes and an NL MVP trophy. But here’s the thing: he could be better.

Consider this fascinating nugget unearthed by Daren Willman:

Kershaw, as Willman notes, never threw a curveball when behind in the count last season. And that’s not all: as Jeff Zimmerman discovered in a December post at RotoGraphs, Kershaw has also been reluctant to employ his other breaking pitch, the slider, in hitter’s counts. A visualization made by Zimmerman of Kershaw’s pitch mix by count reveals the difference between it and the balanced approach utilized by Johnny Cueto. Cueto is willing to throw almost any pitch in any count. Kershaw, on the other hand, becomes extremely reliant on his fastball when he falls behind.

Overall, Kerhsaw threw curveballs at a 15.6% rate last season and at 13.2% rate for his career. It’s his third pitch, but it is also his greatest velocity-separation offering. He rarely throws a changeup. But while Kershaw rarely throws his slider in hitter’s count, he never throws his curveball.

And it’s not just fluky, one-year, phenomenon. Here are the total number of curveballs Kershaw has thrown in his career when facing a 1-0 count…

Read the rest of this entry »

I want to like the World Baseball Classic. I want to get into, I do. Really!

Major League Baseball wants to grow the sport. An international tournament is an ideal way to do that. One needn’t look far for successful models. World Cup soccer and Olympic hockey, for instance, both draw the casual American audience to the television. There’s something engaging about a country rooting for the name on the front of a jersey in a tribal and nationalistic way. The passion and joy of the Dominican Republic team has made for compelling theater in past tournaments.

I want to really look forward to this event. I want to fill out a bracket after reviewing Craig Edwards’ WBC roster analysis, and put some money down. I want to. But I can’t. Not in its current shape and form.

I do believe Rob Manfred is right to want to continue the event despite reports of its potential demise.

I do believe baseball is wise to grow the sport, internationally, where it can. I do believe there is some growth opportunity with regard to the event, but like a worthwhile flip-for-profit project, it requires some rehabilitation.

So let’s fix this thing, shall we? I don’t think we can fix it in time for this year — the tournament begins on March 6 — but if there’s to be a tournament in 2021, it could be better.

Read the rest of this entry »

My regard for Mark Buehrle is growing.

We often don’t fully appreciate people or things while we still have access to them. Buehrle quietly slipped into retirement prior to last season after a remarkable career during which he struck out batters at well below league-average rates, possessed a sub-90 mph fastball for much of his career, and yet accumulated 52 WAR and a 215-160 record over 18 seasons in the majors.

His success was curious, though he was not without his gifts. He could paint corners as well as any starter in baseball. Consider his 2015 fastball location via Baseball Savant:

That’s excellent, but it pales in comparison to Buehrle’s signature skill — namely, the pace at which he worked.

With the mounting concern regarding pace of play from the commissioner’s office, with so much being made of the subject in the media, with pace itself slowing after progress made in 2015, has anyone checked in with the this century’s quickest-working pitcher to get his thoughts on pitch clocks, pace and of a pitcher’s process?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Scott Boras influence on the Nationals’ roster is “inescapable” wrote Washington Post scribe Barry Svrluga on Monday.

Svrluga calculates that, after the Matt Wieters signing, nine players on the Nationals’ projected Opening Day roster will almost certainly be Boras clients, their contracts totaling $551.4 million.

When Dave Cameron examined the curious signing of Wieters by the Nationals earlier this month the FanGraphs editor wrote:

The lesson, as always; if you’re not sure where a Scott Boras client is going to sign, Washington is always a safe guess.

At the plate, Wieters isn’t clearly better than Norris, even with the latter’s miserable 2016 as our most recent data point. …. Statcorner has Norris at +22.5 runs from framing in his career, while Wieters is at -20.9. Prorated to 10,000 pitches, that’s roughly +6.5 per season for Norris and -3.2 for Wieters, so about a 10 run swing between them per year.

The Nationals needed help. They needed to bolster their bench, they required bullpen help, and reportedly added Joe Blanton Tuesday. What they didn’t need was Wieters, a poor receiver with a middling bat. With Wieters, Boras appears to have sold ice to an arctic village. It was a surprising fit, only it wasn’t, as Boras and Nationals owner Ted Lerner have developed something of a deal-making relationship.

Read the rest of this entry »