During the playoffs, Nick Castellanos made a few noteworthy catches, darting and diving to his left. I wondered whether the Phillies’ right fielder, with his mitt on his left hand, was alone in relishing plays to his gloveside. After all, Castellanos didn’t have to reach across his body to make the catch when moving in this direction. I also wondered what, if any, implications this would have on outfield positioning and alignment.
In terms of directional Outs Above Average (OAA), my findings demonstrated that right-handed outfielders actually performed marginally better moving to their armside than their gloveside. But they were considerably stronger to their left than left-handers, who in turn performed much better to their own gloveside. If that word salad confused you, not to worry. These numbers might be easier to digest:
During Game 3 of the ALCS, Jeff Francoeur noted that 10 of the 12 pitchers who had surrendered postseason home runs to Alex Bregman were All-Stars, eliciting a comment about how Bregman hits well against good pitching. That’s undoubtedly a fun fact, but the notion has been rattling around my brain for the last couple weeks. I’ve definitely heard stories about players who hit good pitching, but I’ve never heard of anyone looking at splits based on the quality of the pitcher on the mound.
The main problem with that idea is a logical one. Break down any batter’s performance into its constituent parts, and you’ve entered a zero sum game. If you’re at your best against great pitchers, that means you’re hitting worse against everyone else. It’s hard for me to imagine that there are many players who fare better against Justin Verlander than they do against, well, anyone on the Nationals.
There could be players who are less bad than average, but if I had my choice of superpowers, I’m not sure that’s the one I’d pick. It would definitely help out in the playoffs, but over the course of the season, batters see a lot more average and poor arms than they do great ones. I’d rather perform well the majority of the time. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s either a great or a terrible winter to be a shortstop. On the one hand, four shortstops – Carlos Correa, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Dansby Swanson – figure to be among the offseason’s top free agent earners, making up half of the top eight in FanGraphs’ 2023 Top 50. On the other hand, those four have each other as competition, and differentiating oneself among the All-Star shortstops of four of the last six World Series champions can’t be easy. All four showed just what they’re capable of in 2022. Turner, Bogaerts, and Swanson each finished in the top 15 in position player WAR, separated by a grand total of 0.3, and Correa – if he raised any doubts by getting off to a slow start in Minnesota – slashed .370/.419/.613 over his last 29 games to finish first among all shortstops with a 140 wRC+. These players aren’t interchangeable by any means, and Swanson doesn’t have the offensive pedigree of the other three, but the teams showing interest in one are more than likely to at least take a look at the others. A year after Corey Seager, Trevor Story, Javier Báez, and Correa were among the top free agents available, this winter’s shortstop class is even more loaded.
Nick Castellanos was not good during the 2022 regular season. He was especially bad on defense, costing the Phillies an estimated eight runs. In the playoffs, however, he made a few impressive catches. In fact, his four best plays of the season came in the postseason. His October excellence began in Game 1 of the NLDS, when he made this snag in the bottom of the ninth inning to help preserve a one-run Phillies lead:
He would go on to make two similar grabs in the World Series. This one came in Game 1, with two outs and the winning run on second the bottom of the ninth: Read the rest of this entry »
Some kids dream about playing in the World Series and getting the big hit. Fewer kids, one imagines, dream about playing in the World Series and taking the big hit, but that small group might include Aledmys Díaz.
In Game 1 of the World Series, Díaz came to the plate with two on in the bottom of the 10th inning. After a wild pitch moved both runners into scoring position, David Robertson hung a curveball high and inside, and Díaz did his best to thrust his shoulder into the path of the ball, barely missing. The next pitch wasn’t a hanger, but that didn’t stop Díaz from sticking his Kevlar-covered elbow into the ball and trotting off toward first base. Read the rest of this entry »
When Juan Soto was announced as a finalist for the Gold Glove this year, I was perplexed. To say that the right fielder struggled with his defense this season would be an understatement. As recently as Game 2 of the NLCS, he was still making (or, failing to make) plays like this:
So I turned to Rawlings’ official website to get a better understanding of how Gold Gloves are won. In order to qualify for a Gold Glove, infielders and outfielders must have played in the field for at least 698 innings through their teams’ first 138 games. Maybe Soto grades out better in this subsample. In the absence of custom date ranges for advanced fielding statistics, I compared Soto to the 76 other players who were in the outfield for at least 698 innings on the season. Here is where he ranked:
Some are calling it a legacy at-bat. I think it’s one of the most impressive displays of pitch-to-pitch adjustments I’ve ever seen in a postseason game. Whatever way you want to describe it, all that matters is Bryce Harpersent his team to the World Series after five games of leading the Phillies’ offense with fantastic, historic hitting. If he hadn’t already proved the worth of his contract with an MVP performance in 2021, he did in this series, chewing up Padres pitching with eight hits in 20 at-bats, including two home runs, three doubles, and five RBI.
I can go on about Harper’s postseason hitting forever, but for this piece, I want to focus on his at-bat against Robert Suarez that gave Philadelphia the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning of the series-clinching victory. Nobody was better suited for that moment than the reigning MVP; after each pitch, you could see him processing his swings, which he took a lot of, in preparation for the next one. If there is one thing a hitter needs in the postseason when facing elite pitching, it’s pitch-to-pitch adjustments. Allow me to guide you through how Harper made his. Read the rest of this entry »
PHILADELPHIA — This was what the Phillies had in mind all along: Sweeping three home games to clinch the NLCS, the decisive game featuring a dominant Zack Wheeler performance, a Rhys Hoskins home run, and the other runs scored by the stars the Phillies brought into supplement him — Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and J.T. Realmuto. And atop it all, Harper, battling to break through against an unhittable reliever, at long last flicking a 98.9-mph slider off the outside of the plate and into the seats.
“I told [hitting coach Kevin] Long before I walked up the steps,” Harper recounted at his postgame press conference. “I said, ‘Let’s give them something to remember.'”
The ensuing at-bat was the most memorable of Harper’s already storied career, turning a 3–2 deficit into a 4–3 pennant-clinching win. An excitable but anxious crowd brought from despair to ecstasy, a dugout full of postseason novices leaping over each other and onto the field to celebrate, and the $330 million man, the one-time child prodigy now a week on the gray side of 30, cantering around the bases.
“J.T. set the tone and put pressure on them right away with a base hit. Then it’s the MVP, right? It’s the showman,” Hoskins said. “This guy finds ways in big situations every single time. I don’t even know how many times he did it this series.”
As much as Harper joined this team with precisely this kind of moment in mind, elements of this victory were not planned. Several years of false starts after the shift out of rebuild mode in the late 2010s, for example. Or a midseason managerial change. Or a sudden rainstorm that almost derailed the whole enterprise and brought the series back to San Diego. No matter. Within minutes of Harper’s home run, Calum Scott and Tiësto’s cover of “Dancing On My Own” was piping through the Citizens Bank Park loudspeakers, and lampposts were already being climbed at Broad and Locust. Read the rest of this entry »
SEATTLE – My train begins to fill with Mariners fans. Most are wearing jerseys, but others are outfitted in more home-made looking fare. A young woman sports a dress covered in the team’s logo; its skirt is puffed slightly by teal tulle, with navy bows on her shoulders holding the whole thing upright. Further down the car is a man in a 1995 Division Series shirt. His snowy goatee suggests that unlike the sweatshirt I own of similar vintage, his wasn’t a thrift store find; I wonder if the one he’s wearing smells musty like mine first did. Much of the chatter is about the day finally being here, and how long they’ve all waited, how many disappointments they’ve registered in the years since 2001. I’m surprised by how little I hear about Seattle’s chances today, as if no one dares to entertain the possibility of a tomorrow with baseball, or one potentially without it.
A few stops later, a member of the University of Washington marching band steps off the train; upon seeing his regalia, a couple near me wonders if the football game, which kicks off around 2:30 PM, will cause trouble for their ride back home from SODO. “These cars can get so crowded, you know.”
As I approach the media entrance, lines snake around the ballpark, and the coffee cups and puffy eyes make clear that some of these folks have been here a while. The gates don’t open for another hour and a half, but after almost 21 years, what’s a little more waiting? Read the rest of this entry »
On Tuesday afternoon in Atlanta, José Alvarado asked the Truist Park grounds crew to make some adjustments to the mound, waving off the ensuing chirps from the Braves’ dugout. According to him, Max Fried, the Game 1 starter, had dug out a small pocket at the front of the hill with his delivery; the Phillies’ lefty wanted to avoid tripping over the hole and injuring himself.
Explained in such a way, it sounds like a reasonable thing to ask for. It would be hard to pitch if you’re constantly worried about stumbling and breaking an ankle; it would be much harder to pitch with a broken ankle. Yet even so, it’s not that often you see a reliever ask the grounds crew to touch up the mound. Alvarado, however, has developed a habit of making such a request. Clearly, he is someone who likes to feel in complete control.
It’s hard to blame him for feeling that way. Control is the one thing that has eluded Alvarado throughout his career — he’s consistently inconsistent, you might say. But when he does have proper control of his pitches, he can be an elite bullpen arm. That’s been the case for a long time. Back in 2017, when FanGraphs ranked him as the no. 28 prospect in the Tampa Bay Rays system, Eric Longenhagen praised his “monster stuff” but warned of his “potentially fatal command issues.” Four seasons later, when Alvarado was traded to Philadelphia, Eric once again remarked on his “elite-level stuff” but “frustrating control.”Read the rest of this entry »
