This week’s nuttiest pitches might even have a point. But let’s just start with the GIFs. Because it’s fun to watch crazy pitches do crazy things.

Let’s do the uncle charlies, the yakkers, the yellow hammers — curveballs are on the menu today. As usual, we’re looking at the last three years because that’s what MLB.tv allows us, and we’re sorting PITCHF/x to find the pitches with the most extreme horizontal and vertical movement, as well as velocities.

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Yesterday, we kicked off our look at each division by going through the NL West. Today, we’ll do the AL version from the land of pitcher’s parks.

The Projected Standings

There are two pretty strong contenders at the top, two somewhat interesting teams hanging around the middle, and a likely also-ran. The top of the AL West is unlikely to be as strong this year as it was a year ago, but the low-end of the division should be somewhat better, and the race is open enough to remain interesting all year long. Let’s take a look at the teams.

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Probably should have seen this one coming. Last week, FanGraphs overlord David Appelman announced some minor improvements to the way WAR is calculated on the site, one of them being the inclusion of a double play avoidance stat (wGDP). Shortly thereafter, managing editor Dave Cameron wrote a post regarding The Thing Adam Dunn Was Surprisingly Great At (hint: it was avoiding double plays) and mentioned, in passing, that Mike Trout happened to be the very best at that particular thing last season.

As a quick refresher course, I’ve created an entirely underwhelming flowchart which I believe accurately represents the state of Major League Baseball in the year 2015. My sincerest apologies go out to Sean Dolinar, for I assume this single-handedly ruins all the hard work he’s done over the past couple months in an effort to unify and improve the site’s graphics.

Behold:

So that’s how we got here. A new stat was born, and, like clockwork, Mike Trout just so happened to be the best at it. Well, he was last year at least. In 2014, Trout led the MLB by creating an additional three runs above average by avoiding the double play. If you want take it back a bit further, here’s what a top-15 leaderboard looks like over the last three years, or since Trout has been a full-time regular:

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In the grand scheme of things, evaluating a baseball player’s current ability isn’t that difficult. If you have a sampling of their statistics and have a chance to watch a handful of their games, a reasonably informed observer will come up with a pretty good estimate of the player’s current talent level. Figuring out how good a player is right now requires some skill, but it’s nothing compared to having that same information about a player and attempting to forecast six years into the future.

That’s the job of a scout. You get a handful of looks at a 19 year old, you talk to a few people, you glance at some numbers, and then you’re asked to predict what that player is going to look like at 25. It’s a big ask and as a result, there’s a pretty big margin of error. A good scout should be more accurate than a decently competent observer, but no one would expect a scout to be right on every player. There’s just too much uncertainty involved.

One would hope that a scout doesn’t miss any Mike Trouts or bet high on many Jeff Larishs, but they’re going to miss good players and speak highly of bad one’s during the course of their careers. That’s especially true with respect to very young players.

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I think you could say 2014 was the year Garrett Richards started making sense. He was supposed to strike a bunch of guys out. He was supposed to pitch like a staff No. 1. He was supposed to be awesome, and last year, he finally became awesome, taking over an Angels rotation with the more established arms in decline. Richards hasn’t answered all the questions, and his significant injury last August raised a new one, but at this point, it feels like Richards is what he was supposed to be. And he’s maybe even more remarkable than you thought.

It’s easy to see the big gain in strikeouts. It’s easy to see the drop in FIP and xFIP. It’s easy to see the increase in whiffs. Here now are last year’s top five qualified pitchers in slugging percentage against:

1. Garrett Richards, .261 SLG
2. Clayton Kershaw, .289
3. Felix Hernandez, .303
4. Chris Sale, .305
5. Adam Wainwright, .310

The belief is that Kershaw had the most insane season. And Kershaw did have the most insane season, overall. This is looking at just one thing. But Richards had a big edge in slugging, and he had that edge while pitching in the more hitter-friendly league. The likely reason? It’s the intuitive reason.

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Evaluating the Prospects: Rangers, Rockies, D’Backs, Twins, Astros, Cubs, Reds, Phillies, Rays, Mets, Padres, Marlins, Nationals, Red Sox, White Sox, Orioles, Yankees, Braves, Athletics, Angels, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Tigers, Cardinals, Brewers, Indians, Mariners, Pirates, Royals & Giants

Top 200 Prospects Content Index

Scouting Explained: Introduction, Hitting Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 Pt 4 Pt 5 Pt 6

Draft Rankings: 2015, 2016 & 2017

International Coverage: 2015 July 2nd Parts One, Two & Three, 2016 July 2nd

The Angels system is on the rebound, adding Andrew Heaney in a trade for Howie Kendrick this offseason and getting arguably the top value in the the 1st round of the 2014 draft with Sean Newcomb (though Royals LHP Brandon Finnegan is another solid option). The previous regime under Tony Reagins was focused on upside at all costs in the draft, which gets you some guys like Mike Trout, but also a boom-or-bust system with lots of holes and minor league free agents added to fill those holes.  That starts to show up on the big league team when the inventory starts to get thin, but that necessary depth is now developing via trades and better amateur talent acquisition. The system is still in the bottom third of the league, but they’ve likely pulled out of the bottom five once I rank all 30 systems, with things looking to be trending up.

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Wednesday’s news that Josh Hamilton could be facing an imminent suspension from Major League Baseball has set off a wave of speculation regarding not only the possible cause of the suspension, but also its potential length. Given Hamilton’s history, some have assumed he may have had a relapse of his earlier substance-abuse problems, triggering a possible suspension under MLB’s Joint Drug Agreement (JDA).

Although we presently have very little concrete information regarding Hamilton’s situation, here is what we do know: Mike DiGiovanna broke the news on Wednesday afternoon that Hamilton was in New York City meeting with MLB officials regarding a potential suspension. Ken Rosenthal reported later that, according to an unnamed baseball executive, Hamilton’s transgression was “worse” than a performance enhancing drug (PED) violation.

More alleged details emerged Wednesday evening, with Jon Heyman reporting Hamilton had confessed to a drug relapse involving “at least cocaine.” Heyman went on to report that Hamilton would be placed in MLB’s drug-treatment program as a first-time violator.

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The default introduction: Mike Trout is among the least-troubled players in baseball. By WAR, you could split him into four or five parts and have four or five decent everyday players, at least given good enough prosthetic limbs. Trout’s coming off an MVP award he deserved, after back-to-back seasons of not winning MVP awards he probably deserved. Regarding his very well-known weakness, I’ve written about this perhaps literally countless times, so maybe you’re tired of hearing about it. And I’m about to make a post out of one quote offered at the beginning of spring training. You know what you’re getting, here. Read on, and the blame lies with you.

Trout has checked into Angels camp. Because he’s a star, people want to know what he’s thinking, and as he stood before a horde of media types, Trout said he’d like to increase his stolen bases. Good news, fantasy players! Trout also said he’d like to cut down on his strikeouts. Probably to 0%. Maybe that’s unrealistic, but Trout opened up just a little bit about what was giving him issues, and it’s not often you can get Trout to say anything of substance.

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We’re in that awkward time between the true offseason, when most deals are made, and the spring, when all the Best Shape of His Life news stars flowing in. Let’s call it Projection Season, because we’re all stuck ogling prospect lists while perusing the projected numbers for the major league squads.

One of the most frustrating things about projection season can be the fact that most projection systems remain agnostic about change. Many of the adjustments the players talk about in season don’t take, or take for a while and then require further adjustment to remain relevant. So projections ignore most of it and assume the player will continue to be about the same as he’s always been until certain statistical thresholds are met and the change is believable from a numbers standpoint.

But projections do worse when it comes to projecting pitching than hitting, so there’s something that pitchers do that’s different than the many adjustments a hitter will make to his mechanics or approach over the course of a season. The submission here is that pitchers change their arsenals sometimes, and that a big change in arsenal radically changes who that player is.

Look at Greg Maddux pitching for Peoria in 1985. He’s not the Greg Maddux we know and love. Watch him throw fourseamers and curveballs. It was enough to get through the minor leagues, but, at that point, he’s barely throwing the two pitches that made him a Hall of Famer eventually.

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You know the difference between control and command? Mariano Rivera is why the difference exists. Some pitchers are good at throwing strikes; Mariano Rivera was good at throwing Rivera strikes, which were simply strikes where Rivera wanted them to be. They looked a lot like any other strike, and pitch to pitch you wouldn’t really notice a difference, but over time, pitches pile up, and locations really matter. No one has located quite like Rivera, and you can guess the effects. Or you don’t have to, since Rivera’s career is complete and we have a full statistical record, but anyway. Because Rivera could locate, he could make certain numbers work in his favor.

Yeah, he struck guys out. Yeah, he didn’t walk guys much. Those are the basics. But Rivera was also skilled at allowing weaker contact than your average other guy. One of the reasons we’re usually skeptical of BABIP-suppressing skill is that most pitchers just aren’t good at hitting the same spots over and over. Rivera was one of the exceptions. He limited the singles, and he limited the non-singles.

Let’s take a look at something. PITCHf/x captured only the last few years of Rivera’s career, but Rivera was still outstanding when the cameras were installed, so we have a good amount of data. Let’s consider balls in play that Rivera allowed on pitches that were out of the strike zone. (Thank you, Baseball Savant.) You know what those balls in play are? They’re worse balls in play. Worse, relative to pitches over the plate.

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