Max Fried is a dude again.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that it is so. Being a dude in baseball is much preferable to being just a guy.

After a lengthy rehab from Tommy John surgery and a shaky return, Fried finished the 2016 minor-league season by striking out 44 against seven walks in 25 innings over his final four starts. He touched 97 mph and the knee-melting curveball was back. According to the reviews out of Braves camp, he has picked up this spring where he left off in the fall:

You might recall that Fried was once the second-best pitcher on his high-school team, behind staff ace Lucas Giolito, but was talented enough to go seventh overall in the 2012 draft.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

The very real psychological condition known as the “yips” was on display in the brightest of spotlights: Game Seven of the World Series last fall. The Indians tried to fluster Jon Lester, whose troubles throwing in any direction other than toward home plate had become well known.

After making 98 pick-off attempts in 2010 and 70 in 2011, Lester made just five in 2012, seven in 2013, and none in 2014, according to SportingCharts data. He didn’t make a single pick-off attempt over the course of 66 consecutive starts until this one on April 13, 2015:

The issue isn’t only tied to pick-off attempts. Lester has also struggled when fielding his position, as seen on this throw from April 17, 2016:

Lester’s issue is the most well known and publicized in recent years, but it’s not the only case. This spring, Blake Swihart has struggled throwing the ball back to the mound, though Swihart is reportedly making some progress on that front.

Blake Swihart getting better with throwing back to the pitcher, but still has occasional issue. #redsox #wbz pic.twitter.com/5tJZr5X4Wj

— Dan Roche (@RochieWBZ) February 19, 2017

I personally watched and reported on Pedro Alvarez’s 24 throwing errors in 99 games at third base in 2014, a development that necessitated a move down the defensive spectrum from third to first base.

In 2013, Alvarez hit 36 home runs and played an above-average third base, according to defensive runs above average (1.8). He recorded 3 WAR. But after his struggles with throwing in 2014, after he moved to first and struggled there in 2015, he was then viewed largely as a DH last offseason. He had to wait until March to sign a one-year deal with the Orioles last spring. This spring, he remains unsigned in a market that values bat-only players less and less. Baltimore attempted to play Alvarez at third base in spots in 2016, but he was still not over the throwing issues: he recorded two throwing errors against five assists in 53 innings at the position.

The yips have cost Alvarez millions and might play a role in prematurely ending his career. The condition did end the career of Pirates broadcaster and former Pirates pitcher Steve Blass. The yips played a role in derailing the pitching career of Rick Ankiel, who said in a recent interview he drank vodka before a start in 2000 to “tame a monster” that “didn’t fight fair.”

There’s something inherently tragic about an otherwise healthy athlete failing to fulfill one of the most basic obligations of his profession. It can be uncomfortable to watch a pitcher such as Lester become vulnerable in the center of the infield. To watch a player like Alvarez inexplicably lose the ability to make routine throws is difficult to comprehend. While I had explored the issue as a newspaper reporter, I wanted to understand more about the condition and how teams might be able to ameliorate it. So last week I spoke to one of the few players who has suffered through the condition and beat it: Steve Sax.

Read the rest of this entry »

You might have forgotten about Jesse Hahn, but I assure you he is alive and well and competing for a spot in the Oakland rotation this spring.

Hahn getting the nod in the Cactus League opener demonstrates that he truly is right in the mix for 5th starter spot.

— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) February 21, 2017

Elbow issues cut his 2015 season short, and a shoulder strain and performance inconsistency limited him to 46 innings with the A’s last season when he posted a 5.63 FIP and an ugly 2% K-BB% mark. It was a lost year for Hahn.

But Hahn was recently one of the more intriguing arms in the sport.

Read the rest of this entry »

To preview MLB spring training, Tyler Kepner examined the competitive “window” status — that is, the realistic possibility for contention — of all 30 major-league clubs earlier this month for the New York Times. Kepner employed four logical window designations: closed, open, closing and opening.

I think reasonable people can mostly agree that the Cubs’ window of contention is open, and the White Sox’ window is closed. The Royals’ is perhaps closing, and the Braves’ is opening (if not in 2017, then soon). While we will not agree on every status, it’s an interesting exercise.

Windows of contention are an interesting concept, particularly in an era of two Wild Cards in each league. How do teams balance the future and present? How do clubs play a so-so hand knowing the unpredictability of the game? Few teams are able to sustain long windows of contention. The Braves of the 1990s and early 2000s and the Cardinals of the 21st century have done it as well as any team in the in the Wild Card era.

It’s also easier to operate if you suspect your window is either completely open or closed. If you’re the Cubs and Indians last deadline, you’re willing to trade significant young assets for impact relief help. If you suspect your window is closed, like the White Sox, you’re willing to deal assets like Chris Sale and Adam Eaton. There’s a clarity in decision-making, in creating a strategy and plan to implement.

Said Texas Rangers GM Jon Daniels to FanGraphs’ David Laurila on charting a course:

“Something our management team has talked about a lot is the mistake we made our first year here, in 2006. We were caught in the middle. We convinced ourselves that if A, B, and C went right, we had a chance to win, and I think you can make the case that, for any team, it’s not a sustainable strategy.”

Being caught in the middle is the most difficult position for a club. Consider, for instance, a team with some relatively young stars at the major-league level. The front office thought this core of players would form the foundation of a contending team, but it’s not surrounded with the requisite depth, prospects or resources to realistically contend and sustain. The White Sox entered the season in that position. In the meantime, they’ve chosen a course. The Angels, Diamondbacks, Marlins, and Twins could all face difficult decisions in choosing paths in the not-too-distant future.

Read the rest of this entry »

We know early spring-training coverage, February coverage, is littered with Best Shape of His Life stories. While there’s no database to track the impact and predictive power of these stories, the general sense is they generally do not correlate with dramatically better performance in the following season.

In a FanGraphs chat a couple weeks ago, one questioner asked me to what types of stories I pay attention early in the spring. What really matters this time of year? It’s a good question. One story line that does interest me in February — something that can perhaps provide real value and change — is the addition of a new pitch.

Jason Collette was kind enough this week to track every reported pitch addition to date in 2017. Perhaps the new pitch about which we should be most excited isn’t really a pitcher adding a new pitch at all, but bringing back an old one. Eno Sarris is excited about the return of Dylan Bundy’s cutter, a pitch once described as “a supreme piece of aerodynamic filth” by former-BP-writer-turned-Cubs-scout Jason Parks. Imagine Andrew Miller with another weapon or Joe Ross with a much-needed changeup.

But perhaps no one needs a new pitch more than one lefty experimenting with one this spring: Reds reliever Tony Cingrani. (And no group in baseball needs more help than what was a historically poor bullpen in Cincinnati last season.)

Cingrani told MLB.com the cutter he began developing this offseason is “just another way to get guys out… [The cutter] feels comfortable.”

But Cingrani really has had only one way, to date, to get major-league hitters out. Among all pitchers who tossed at least 40 innings last season, Cingrani led baseball in fastball usage, throwing his four-seam fastball 89.5% of the time.

Read the rest of this entry »

On December 2, new Diamondbacks general manger Mike Hazen announced the hire of Mike Fitzgerald to lead the Diamondbacks’ analytics department. Perhaps Fitzgerald’s most notable contribution in Pittsburgh, where he was the No. 2-ranking analyst, was pounding the table for then free agent Russell Martin — and, at the same time, the power of pitch-framing — at the close of the 2012 season.

On December 2, the Diamondbacks elected to non-tender incumbent starting catcher Welington Castillo, which surprised some in and around the industry. Castillo led an Arizona catching group that finished 26th in framing runs last season, according to Baseball Prospectus.

On December 2, the Diamondbacks reached an agreement with catcher Jeff Mathis on a two-year deal. On a per-pitch basis, among catchers who received at least 1,000 pitches last season, Mathis was was the ninth-best framer, according to StatCorner, and the best free-agent catcher available by that measure. While in a reserve role last season, Mathis graded out as the 13th-best defensive catcher in baseball, according to Baseball Prospectus. Castillo ranked 95th. New Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said at the winter meetings that there is no clear-cut No. 1 catcher and that Mathis will split the work load with Chris Herrmann.

Said Lovullo to reporters in Washington, D.C, in December:

“We believe in the metrics. We believe in the data. We believe in trying to do as much research as possible. We have a great team of people that are working hard behind the scenes.”

It was on December 2, 2016, that the Diamondbacks joined the 21st century. And no group of players stands to benefit more than the Diamondback starting pitchers. As noted by Mike Petriello on Tuesday in an excellent piece for MLB.com, Zack Greinke is a good bounce-back candidate for 2017 due to the club’s improved framing and defense. Indeed, everyone in the Diamondbacks staff is a good bet to improve.

Greinke will be Exhibit A, though.

As Petriello notes, according to Baseball Prospectus’ values, no pitcher benefited more from framing than Greinke in 2015. It’s part of the reason I led my 2015 NL Cy Young ballot with Jake Arrieta in a tight race, as Greinke benefited from Yasmani Grandal.

Greinke fell from first to 725th last year in framing support, a 15-run drop.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Kiermaier has long been underrated in the mainstream baseball world. He provides value in ways that tend to get overlooked or, at least, receive less attention. You probably know, for example, that Kiermaier is an elite defensive player. You’re probably aware that Kiermaier is an above-average baserunner. You might also know that Kiermaier has recorded a league-average batting line despite having faced the most difficult pitchers and that he owns a pair of piercing green eyes.

The total package is quite valuable. Kiermaier has already produced 13.1 WAR for his career over parts of three major-league seasons. He produced more than five wins in 2015, and per 162 games, he’s a 5.8 WAR/season player for his career.

I’m guessing most in the FanGraphs community consider Kiermaier to be a star. If things go well, everyone else might believe that this year, too.

Yesterday, Baseball Prospectus editor Aaron Gleeman posted some of PECOTA’s top breakout picks for hitters in 2017. Some of them aren’t all that surprising: I think a lot of people suspect there is more in the bats of Byron Buxton and Gregory Polanco and Addison Russell. But one name on the hitters list did jump out at me, and that was Kiermaier’s.

Wrote Gleeman:

WARP has long viewed Kiermaier as one of the most underrated players in baseball and now PECOTA thinks he has a chance to add above-average offense to otherworldly defense. Last season Kiermaier upped his power and plate discipline, but it went largely unnoticed because he hit just .246 and missed two months with a broken hand. If he continues to be plus-20 runs in center field Kiermaier is a star no matter what, but PECOTA sees untapped offensive upside in the 27-year-old. At the 60th percentile he’d reach 6.0 WARP and at the 70th percentile or higher he’d be among the MLB leaders in WARP, combining amazing defense with an .800 OPS.

Kiermaier’s top age-27 PECOTA comp? Vernon Wells. While the older version of Wells wasn’t productive, the 27-year-old version recorded a 128 wRC+ as a center fielder in a six-win campaign.

If Kiermaier goes from being a plus-plus glove and league-average bat, to a player with a plus-plus glove and better-than-average bat, he will be (or should be) near the top of the AL MVP voting. He finished third in bWAR (7.3) in 2015, but 17th in AL MVP voting.

So is this breakout possible? Maybe it’s already happening.

Read the rest of this entry »

You’re probably aware of the Dellin Betances arbitration case and the interesting comments Yankees president Randy Levine made afterward. FanGraphs’ Nicolas Stellini wrote about the situation over the weekend.

No player or team likes going through the arbitration. Both parties try to avoid the process if at all possible, as it can create animosity between the camps.

And if you’re a player, you’re perhaps increasingly motivated to avoid allowing a panel of arbitrators determine your salary. Historically, teams beat players in the majority of arbitration cases, according to data compiled by Maury Brown:

Moreover, Brown reported this week that the advantage in favor of the owners has widened in recent years. The process increasingly seems to favor clubs — in part, perhaps, because arbitrators remain behind the times in how they evaluate performance.

Consider this David Laurila Baseball Prospectus Q&A from 2012 with long-time arbitrator Roger Abrams. Abrams suggests that the information presented to arbitrators is typically “not quite sabermetrics” and that arbitrators are not “baseball specialists.”

DL: You used the phrase “not quite sabermetrics,” but can it be assumed that more advanced statistics are presented today than in years past?

RA: It’s a mixed bag. What you don’t want to do is confuse the arbitrators, and some of the sabermetric stuff can be rather confusing. On the other hand, arbitrators can understand the importance of a strikeout-to-walk ratio. They can understand why ERA is a critical stat as opposed to wins and losses, which are meaningless–the pitcher doesn’t win or lose the game; the club wins or loses the game. The pitcher is responsible for earned runs. That is very simple-minded sabermetrics, and that is helpful in salary arbitration. Of course, it’s all glossied up in the submissions, which, frankly, you don’t have enough time to read within 24 hours, let alone digest.

Now, maybe arbitrators are slowly changing how they evaluate performance, but, at best, it’s a slow process that’s probably not caught up to better ways of understanding and measuring player value.

At a time when owners are making gains in percentage of revenue share, the arbitration process — especially in early arbitration years — is one more force working against players.

So does that mean everybody would be OK just eliminating the arbitration system? I’m guessing the answer is “No,” but I do think the players union would benefit from replacing the current system with something that exists in other major pro sports — namely, restricted free agency.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Appel is one of the great unknowns this spring. He remains something of an enigma, wrapped in a riddle, and now shrouded in post-surgery mystery.

I will begin with a brief history of a player who has seen his prospect luster diminished as dramatically as few pitchers in recent memory.

Recall that the former Stanford University ace was drafted twice in the first round. In 2012, under the new restrictions on amateur signing bonuses, the Pirates weren’t willing to forfeit a future draft pick for exceeding their pool limit. Appel’s signing demands were not met, and he returned to Stanford.

He returned for his senior year, which seemed like a risky decision given that injury or poor performance could diminish his stock. But Appel won the bet on himself as he was drafted No. 1 overall in 2013, by Houston, one spot ahead of Kris Bryant. While Appel over Bryant looks like Bowie-over-Jordan-like decision at the moment, Appel had an impressive resume coming out of school, including a mid-90s fastball and wipeout slider that helped him set the program’s strikeout record with this very pitch against UCLA nearly four years ago:

But few have fallen further than Appel in the last four years.

Read the rest of this entry »