Just a little more than a week ago, the Indians had a reportedly healthy Danny Salazar, a totally healthy Carlos Carrasco, and their odds of winning the World Series, according to our projections, sat at 13.4%. Aside from a 24-hour window back on July 5 during which Cleveland’s odds jumped up to 14.2%, last week’s figure was the highest of the year for the soon-to-be American League Central Division champions.

Of course, Salazar is no longer healthy, having finally given in to the right elbow that’s been barking at him for much of the season. He seems unlikely to contribute again until 2017. And of course, Carrasco is no longer healthy, having been knocked out just two pitches into his most recent start after being struck by an Ian Kinsler line drive and fracturing his throwing hand. He won’t contribute again until 2017.

Understandably, this has provided a huge blow to Cleveland’s odds, which our own Corinne Landrey touched upon this morning. While the Indians will still have a better shot at winning it all than all but seven teams come October, their odds have been cut from 13.4% to 9.3% in the blink of an eye, a 30% decrease that couldn’t occur so quickly without a devastating injury or two. Our projections have long viewed Cleveland as either the strongest contender for the American League pennant, or at least the team most likely to stand in someone else’s way. No longer is that the case.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Chicago Cubs are the unquestioned best team in baseball at the moment. There is no aspect of the game where the team struggles. They hit, hit for power, field and run the bases at a high level, pitch well as starters, and pitch well as relievers. When we ask questions and delve into the numbers, we do not ask if they are good. Instead, we ask how good are they, how this happened, and who is responsible. On the hitting side of things, numbers are easier to come by and believe in. On the run-prevention side, however, assigning value between pitching, defense, and luck can be difficult.

Back in June, August Fagerstrom noted that the Cubs’ opponent BABIP, then at .250, was basically the lowest of the past 55 years when adjusted for league average. Back in June, we had not yet completed half the season. Now in September, with the season nearly complete, the Cubs BABIP has risen… all the way to .251, increasing just one measly point. The Cubs are preventing balls in play at a record level.

On balls in play there are three principal groups of actors: pitchers, hitters, and defenders. While an individual hitter might have a decent amount of control over whether a batted ball becomes a hit or an out, pitchers face so many different hitters over the course of a season that, for any one pitcher and any one team, the control by the pitcher and defense on batted balls is likely very influential. So how do we break this down?

First, let’s back up a step, and note something else the Cubs have been doing at a historic level. Generally speaking, a team’s FIP is going to be fairly close to a team’s ERA. Since World War II, there have been 1,716 team seasons, and all but 108 (6.3%) have produced an ERA and FIP within a half-run of each other; two-thirds of teams, within a quarter-run. The Cubs are one of the biggest outliers we have ever seen.

So we see the Cubs up there, and wonder what could be causing this. Do the Cubs have a secret sauce? Is it the pitching? Is it the defense? Is this luck?

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, we ran a series of posts laying out the case for the most compelling candidates for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award (links to all of which are available here). Today, we continue with the National League MVP Award.

Note that, as with last week’s posts, these are designed to make an affirmative argument for their subject and are not intended to serve as comprehensive looks at every candidate on their own. The authors tasked with writing these posts may not even believe their subject actually deserves to win, but they were brave enough to make the case anyway. The goal of these posts is to lay out the potential reasons for voters to consider a variety of candidates and to allow the readers to decide which argument is most persuasive.

Not every award race has an obvious front-runner. Like, take the American League Cy Young Award. That’s as tight a race as you can imagine, so any number of candidates can emerge. For any one of them, you can go in asking, why should this guy be the winner? I think the National League MVP Award is different. The way I see it, the conversation begins with Kris Bryant. He’s out in front, so you have to wonder, why shouldn’t this guy be the winner? Perfectly legitimate question. Trying to answer it just leads you right back to the start.

Read the rest of this entry »

Certain people on a baseball field possess the type of abilities that lend themselves to being noticed. It’s very easy to notice Giancarlo Stanton when he hits a massive home run. It’s tough to miss Noah Syndergaard pumping 101-mph fastballs in the first inning. Others possess the type of abilities that only become noticed when things go wrong. We don’t really notice the first-base umpire until he blows the call that ruins a perfect game. Nobody knows the third-base coach’s name until he holds the runner that could’ve changed the World Series. And then there’s a third group who possess extraordinary abilities, one way or another, that go completely unnoticed. Someone is the best in the world at playing ricochets off the wall in the outfield, but we’ve got no real way of knowing. There’s a king of the “second-base-glove-flip-to-first,” but we haven’t crowned him.

For some time, Javier Baez existed in that third group, of having an elite skill that’s not as obvious as hitting a home run or throwing 100. Lately, he’s been moving into group one. It’s getting hard not to notice Javy Baez’s tag game.

Read the rest of this entry »

Just yesterday, I wrote about some concerns regarding Jake Arrieta. In particular, over time, Arrieta has gotten worse against left-handed hitters, losing the effectiveness of his best pitch while also losing his pinpoint command. This can be traced back to Arrieta losing the remarkable consistency of his mechanics. Arm speed and release point are everything, and for the last little while, Arrieta has been fighting uphill. He needs to get himself right before the playoffs.

Arrieta remains plenty good, but he has some stuff to work out. Kyle Hendricks, meanwhile, has nothing to work out. And compared to Arrieta, Hendricks has followed kind of the opposite course. He’s gotten better against left-handed hitters. He’s essentially added a new pitch while honing his pinpoint command. His mechanics are as consistent as they’ve ever been. Right now, we’re seeing the best version of Kyle Hendricks. You’ve probably read about him limiting quality contact. When you dig in, it’s no mystery how it’s happened.

Read the rest of this entry »

Any Cubs fan could tell you Jake Arrieta just doesn’t seem quite right. This has been the case for a number of weeks, or months, and we’ve touched on it before. It’s funny to think about the hand-wringing over a pitcher sitting on a sub-3 ERA. But, he really has gotten meaningfully worse, and he’s the staff ace of a World Series favorite. Cubs fans don’t have a whole lot of negatives right now. Arrieta might be turning into one, and he had a clunker against Pittsburgh just Monday.

Last week, I wrote about the curious disappearance of Arrieta’s unbelievable slider. It hasn’t killed him or anything, with the fastball picking up the slack, but that’s not something Arrieta would’ve wished for. The slider going away is a symptom of something. I can present to you now another symptom of something. And it’s related to the slider’s deterioration — Arrieta’s developing a platoon split. He’s having some trouble with lefties, and, it turns out there are lefties everywhere.

Read the rest of this entry »

My hunch is that it’s easier for pitchers to make adjustments on the fly than hitters. In part this is because pitchers are simply more in control — they can aim for different areas, while hitters simply have to respond. Pitchers also get more and longer breaks between appearances, and sometimes a pitch can just click. Everybody everywhere is always tweaking something, and I’m no authority, but I’d guess that hitters make their biggest changes over offseasons. That’s when they have the best opportunity to identify a flaw and get to overwriting the old muscle memory.

Yet you do see midseason adjustments. Some players are just better at adjusting than others. Some players are more aware of themselves than others. Some adjustments stick, and some adjustments fade away. Muscle memory is a fickle thing. I can tell you that Addison Russell has changed on the fly. For a while, it seemed like he’d need to either improve his contact or improve his power. His power now is trending up. He is 22 years old.

Read the rest of this entry »

Khris Davis has maintained excellent exit velocity all year, and has 33 home runs to his name, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t pressed at times with his new team. His walk rate is less than half what it used to be, and his swinging-strike rate is up nearly 20%.

The Oakland outfielder admitted that his decision on when to swing hasn’t been at its finest this year. “I was putting pressure on myself in a new environment,” he told me recently before a game against the Indians. “It was mental. Just kinda settled down.”

It’s something we can easily see in his swing percentages — but, perhaps more importantly, it’s totally normal and has happened very often to other big bats changing teams.

Read the rest of this entry »

Kris Bryant is everything you could want in an MVP candidate. He hits, he runs, he plays defense, he moves around, he’s in there every day — Bryant is an outstanding player on an outstanding team. You don’t have to worry about the Cubs wasting him, and not going to the playoffs. If Bryant’s teammates are doing him any harm, it could be because there are too many good ones — even without Bryant, the Cubs would be fine. It speaks to the roster’s strength, but Bryant is the best regular. He’s maybe, or probably, the best all-around player in the National League.

There’s more than a month left to go, so various leaderboards are going to change. Performances will change, and perceptions will go along with them. That being said, Kris Bryant has to be thought of as the NL MVP front-runner. By which I mean, I assume he has the most support. And, what a player to throw your support behind! In so many ways, Bryant would be deserving. There’s just one little problem. That one little problem is basically the entire counter-argument.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a sense that Jake Arrieta isn’t quite what he’s been before. It’s not entirely untrue — a season ago, Arrieta put together a historic campaign. He set the bar so high for himself that it would be next to impossible to meet the updated expectations. But, you know, Arrieta’s still been terrific. Last year, opponents batted .185. This year they’ve batted .183. He ranks fourth among qualified starting pitchers in ERA, and even since his ERA dipped under 1 around the beginning of May, it’s been just a little over 3. Last year’s National League Cy Young came down to Arrieta, Zack Greinke, and Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw’s hurt. Greinke’s already allowed 19 more runs than he did a season ago. Arrieta is doing just fine.

He simply seems a wee bit less automatic. From the perspective of an observer, he’s made it more difficult to take outs for granted. From the perspective of an analyst, Arrieta’s command has wobbled. And what’s maybe most interesting here: Arrieta apparently doesn’t have a feel for his slider. Or cutter. Or whatever. You know what I mean. Arrieta has managed a low ERA while, underneath, he’s had trouble finding what had been one of the truly elite pitches in the game.

Read the rest of this entry »