By June of 2013, Baltimore’s beat writers had established their favorite in-season stat to track: Manny Machado’s rapidly rising doubles count.

Machado was in the midst of his first full season in the majors and on pace to make a run for the single-season doubles record. He finished the season with 51 (a several-way tie for 51st all-time), but in the moment, he represented a rookie with sky high potential, standing in the shadow of a mountain representing his own potential peak.

As he dumped double after double into the outfield, Orioles broadcasters noted for fans that the 20-year-old Machado was still developing physically, so his power tool was poised to level up as his career progressed, and when it did, some portion of those 51 two-baggers would convert to round-trippers. The Doubles to Dingers developmental arc is a real phenomenon. After hitting a double once every 14 plate appearances and a home run once every 50 in 2013, Machado followed up that performance in ’14 by doubling just once every 25 PA while upping his homer rate to once every 30. More recently, the current Baltimore broadcast booth has applied the Doubles to Dingers arc to Gunnar Henderson, another promising second-year player on the left side of the Orioles’ infield. However, as Henderson has increased his home run rate in his second full season by over 50%, his doubles rate has held steady, suggesting he’s leveled up his hit tool alongside the power surge, which doesn’t quite fit this narrative arc.

So which players have best exemplified the Double to Dingers storyline, and how did their stories play out afterward? We don’t need to rely on broadcasters, who have a tendency to fuel fan optimism, because this is extremely quantifiable. To identify players on this path, I started the search in 1988 and looked only at players who at the time had three or fewer seasons of at least 100 PA in the majors. I compared their ratio of dingers to doubles during the season in question to their career ratio for all seasons prior. Only samples of at least 300 PA were considered when calculating the ratio. Players also needed to be hitting doubles in at least 4% of their PAs prior to unlocking the next level of power, and after leveling up, their new homer rate should settle in above 2% of PAs (thresholds chosen are round numbers at or just below league average because this really only matters for hitters producing at a baseline level of competency in both key categories). To further ensure that the change in their dingers-to-doubles ratio is caused by a somewhat proportional change to the frequency of both doubles and dingers, their homer rate needed to increase by at least half a percent; likewise, their doubles rate must have decreased by at least half a percent. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball is truly a game of goops and gunks. Clubbies prepare pearls with Lena Blackburne Baseball Rubbing Mud. Position players paste their bats with pine tar and pamper their gloves with leather conditioner. Trainers soothe sore muscles with Icy Hot or Tiger Balm, and coaches spray the field with foul streaks of tobacco juice. Between innings, players wolf down caramel-filled stroopwafels specially designed to replenish high-performance athletes while fans slather hot dogs with mustard, ketchup, relish, chili, and blindingly yellow nacho cheese sauce that is, in fact, none of those three things. And of course, pitchers have been known to secret everything from sunscreen to petroleum jelly to Spider Tack on their person. If it defies easy categorization as a solid or a liquid, there’s a place for it at the ballpark.

Rosin sits somewhere in the middle. It’s powdered plant resin that sits on the mound inside not one but two cloth bags, but it doesn’t work its magic in that form. It requires a liquid to coax out its adhesive properties. The only approved liquid is sweat, for which a player might go to their hair or their forearm, but even then, there are limits. David Cone demonstrated the power of rosin after Max Scherzer’s ejection last April. With just a small amount of water and rosin, enough to create only the slightest discoloration on his fingers, Cone could create enough tack to make the baseball defy gravity. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in January, I expressed grave concern over the state and direction of the Washington Nationals. They’d followed their World Series title with four straight last-place finishes, jettisoned most of their good players, and watched a series of prospects flame out. It wasn’t just a matter of waiting for Dylan Crews and James Wood to hit the majors; I argued that Washington needed to build a foundation of strong supporting players. Wood and Crews could be the difference between the Nats winning 80 games a year and 90, but if the infrastructure wasn’t ready, they’d turn a 70-win team into an 80-win team. And at that point, why did we even bother?

I’m pleased to report that the Nationals — no doubt sobered and inspired by my pessimistic appraisal of the situation — have answered the call. They don’t stink anymore. I don’t know if they’re good right now, as 38-41 and fourth place in the division isn’t exactly reminding anyone of the Big Red Machine. But on the journey from cheeks to championships, mediocrity is the first waypoint. Besides, with the NL Wild Card race being what it is, the Nats look like they’re going to be within a couple games of a playoff spot halfway through the season. Read the rest of this entry »

This week marks the halfway point of the 2024 regular season. We’re out of silly sample size season now, having moved on to wondering which teams will add at the deadline and which will start building for tomorrow. Season-long leaderboards are populated with the best players in the league, just like you’d expert. The White Sox and Rockies are awful; the Yankees and Dodgers are great. Plenty of this season has gone according to plan.

Not everything has, though. The Blue Jays and Cubs didn’t get off to the starts they hoped for. On the other side of the coin, the Phillies and Guardians have both exceeded expectations by a mile. Perhaps not coincidentally, both teams have gotten superb performances from their relief corps all season. It’s largely the usual suspects: Emmanuel Clase is one of the best closers of the decade, while the Phillies had the best bullpen projection in the sport coming into the season. But it’s not exclusively the usual suspects. Case in point, or perhaps I should say Cade in point: Cade Smith.

If you’re not a Guardians fan, you might not know who Cade Smith is, and I can hardly blame you. He made his major league debut this season after a solid 2023 campaign during which he compiled a 4.02 ERA (3.42 FIP) and struck out 35% of opposing batters. He struggled to control his walks and Triple-A hitters touched him up for six homers (20% HR/FB), but all told, it was a good year. He broke camp with the big league team; those same power rankings that liked the Phillies so much had Smith down for 61 innings of work as a middle reliever. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers played their final game in Brooklyn on September 24, 1957. They won 2-0 behind rookie Danny McDevitt, who scattered five singles and never let the Pirates get a runner past second base. They’d finish the season on the road, never to return. Five days after their season ended, the USSR launched Sputnik, the first artificial satellite in human history. With the Braves and Yankees in the midst of a seven-game thriller of a World Series, the 23-inch sphere transmitted adorable beeps down to earth until its batteries died three weeks later, so frightening the public in this country that the government established NASA and embarked on a 12-year sprint to put American boots on the moon. Among other things, the Apollo astronauts studied to become geologists so that they could recognize and bring home samples that would teach us more about the history and composition of both the moon and the earth. They also installed reflective panels for a laser ranging experiment that revealed the moon is moving away from the earth at the rate of 3.8 centimeters per year.

In 1918, before they were in Los Angeles or even officially called the Dodgers, the Brooklyn Robins earned just 212 walks in 126 games for a walk rate of 4.6%. Shortstop Ollie O’Mara managed just seven walks in 450 plate appearances. Since the beginning of the modern era in 1903, that team’s 67 BB%+ is the lowest in AL/NL history. Only one other team, the 1957 Kansas City Athletics, has finished a season below 70. Like the Dodgers, the Athletics would drift away from Kansas City. Like the moon, they would keep on drifting.

The Marlins are running a 5.7% walk rate, worst in baseball this year. Their 67 BB%+ also puts them second from the bottom since 1903, snugly between those Dodgers and Athletics teams. When I started writing this article, they were at the very bottom, but in an uncharacteristic fit of ecstatic restraint, they picked up three whole walks on Monday. It was their 27th game this season with at least three walks. Every other team in baseball has had at least 40 such games. The Marlins have gone without a walk 18 different times. That’s twice as many zero-walk games as 28 of the other 29 teams. In all, the Marlins have walked 164 times in 79 games. Since 1901, only 22 teams have walked less over their first 79 games. Every single one of those teams played more than 100 years ago.

The reason for Miami’s inability to ambulate, at least in a baseball sense, is very simple. Since Sports Info Solutions started tracking these things in 2002, the 2024 Marlins trail only the 2019 Tigers as the most chase-happy team ever recorded. (Once again, they were in first when I pitched this article, and I am taking their ever-so-slightly improved patience very personally.) SIS has those Tigers at 34.3% and this year’s Marlins at 34.0%, while Statcast has the two at 35% and 34.4%, respectively. In all likelihood, the Marlins will spend the rest of the season locked in a very breezy bullfight with that 2019 Detroit team. Read the rest of this entry »

Carlos Carrasco will be coming off of his best start of the season when he takes the mound tonight for the Cleveland Guardians against the Baltimore Orioles. Last Friday, the 37-year-old right-hander surrendered a lone run while logging seven strikeouts and allowing just four baserunners across six innings in a 7-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays. His overall campaign, though, has been uninspiring. All told, Carrasco has a 5.40 ERA and a 4.78 FIP over 65 innings, and his 18.1% strikeout rate ranks in the 23rd percentile.

His 2023 season was likewise lackluster. Showing signs of a career in decline as he settled into the back half of his 30s, Carrasco put up worse numbers last year than he has so far this season. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Time and tide waits for no man” remains true six centuries later; now a veteran in his 15th big league season, Carrasco is seemingly at a crossroads. A return to his 2015-18 glory years — a span in which he went 60-36 with a 3.40 ERA and a 3.12 FIP — is highly unlikely, but as his last outing suggests, Cookie could conceivably reestablish himself as a reliable contributor to Cleveland’s rotation. The right-hander feels he has gas left in the tank, though how much gas — and how long it will last — is uncertain.

Prior to a recent game at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, Carrasco talked about his evolution as a pitcher and his belief that he can still get hitters out.

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David Laurila: How much have you changed as a pitcher over your many years in the big leagues?

Carlos Carrasco: “I’m pretty much the same guy. The only difference is that I don’t throw 95-97 anymore. I’m 92, 94 sometimes. Everything is still the same from back in the day except the velo.”

Laurila: Less velocity presumably impacts how you need to go after hitters… Read the rest of this entry »

As of this writing, Mason Miller leads all relief pitchers in K% and K-BB%. You’ve heard of him. He’s one of this season’s breakout stars. He’s so good, he’s convinced people who should know better that years of team control for a relief pitcher ought to be worth a lot in the trade market. High praise, indeed.

No. 2 is Jeremiah Estrada, a small (6-foot-1) right-hander whom the Padres plucked off the waiver wire last November. In his previous MLB experience — 16 1/3 innings over parts of two seasons with the Cubs — Estrada struck out 21 batters and walked 15 while allowing 10 earned runs, including five home runs. This year, Estrada has 48 strikeouts against 10 walks in 26 1/3 innings. His 43.6 K% is not only second in the league this year, it would be one of the 20 best all-time if he keeps it up for the rest of the season.

It’s like he’s not the same pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

Julio Rodríguez is having a down year with the bat. Three months into the season, the 23-year-old Seattle Mariners center fielder is slashing just .257/.308/.343 with seven home runs and a 92 wRC+, numbers that are well below the .279/.338/.495 with a 135 wRC+ and 60 home runs he put up over his first two big league campaigns. There are a pair of silver linings, though. One is that Rodríguez was markedly better in the second half of the 2023 season (a .942 OPS) than he’d been in the first half (.721). The other is Seattle’s record. Even with the superstar performing at less than his usual standards, the Mariners are 45-36 and sitting atop the AL West standings. If Rodríguez were to repeat last season’s second-half resurgence — something you might not want to bet against — that surely would go a long way toward helping propel Seattle’s postseason push.

In the 104th installment of our Talks Hitting series, Rodríguez discussed his early development as a hitter, how he balances staying the course with a need for change, and the perspective he takes when looking at his stat sheet.

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David Laurila: How did you first learn to hit?

Julio Rodríguez: “Little League. I just picked up a bat with my dad and started swinging it.”

Laurila: Do you consider yourself a natural hitter?

Rodríguez: “Kind of, yeah. I could say that. In Little League, I had my coach and all that, but my dad was a big part of it too. There was a point where he was kind of my coach before I went to this academy in Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic. He, as well as some other coaches, helped me out.”

Laurila: What is your father’s baseball background?

Rodríguez: “He just played amateur — he didn’t do professional — but he loved the game. That’s why I started playing.”

Laurila: What about hitting instruction when you went to the academy? Read the rest of this entry »

At this time last year, the Phillies faced a good deal of long-term uncertainty about their rotation. Aaron Nola was a free agent after the season, Zack Wheeler would follow a year later, and the only pitcher with a guaranteed contract past the 2024 season was Taijuan Walker. This time around, their rotation once again leads the league in WAR, but much of that future angst has been alleviated. The Phillies re-signed Nola and extended Wheeler during the offseason, and now they’ve locked up left-hander Cristopher Sánchez, a 2023 sensation who has remained one this season, for at least four more years, with two club options that could keep him around the through 2030 season.

The 27-year-old Sánchez, whom the Phillies acquired in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays for Curtis Mead back in 2019, has a 2.67 ERA/2.49 FIP over 15 starts this season. That’s good for 2.6 WAR, fourth best among National League pitchers. Sánchez will receive a guaranteed $22.5 million over the next four seasons, buying out all of his possible years of arbitration, plus a $2 million signing bonus. Not bad for someone who had just one full year of service time entering 2024. The two club options come with a $1 million buyout each for 2029 and ’30, bringing the minimum value of the deal to $22.5 million. If the Phillies pick up those two options, for $14 million and $15 million, respectively, and if Sánchez secures top-10 finishes in the Cy Young voting during those option years, his salaries could increase to $16 million for 2029 and $19 million for ’30. That puts the maximum total value of the extension at $56.5 million over six years.

If you didn’t see Sánchez coming, you’re definitely not alone. Mead went on to become one of Tampa Bay’s top prospects – he was still ranked fourth in the Rays’ system and 32nd overall in our preseason prospects rankings – while Sánchez came back from the COVID layoff struggling against Triple-A hitters. Changeup pitchers with command issues generally aren’t highly regarded, and neither Sánchez’s cup of coffee in 2021 nor his larger carafe in 2022 suggested a pitcher who would become a key part of a top rotation a year later. The Phillies certainly weren’t confident in him entering 2023; he had lost weight over the offseason, and the team intended to give him only a single spot start in April after a White Sox doubleheader messed up the rotation’s rest days. From a story from last August by Matt Gelb of The Athletic:

Rob Thomson was transparent with Sánchez: This was one start, and one start only. Sánchez, who had missed most of spring training with various injuries, later said he appreciated the manager’s honesty. He knew where he stood.

Before the call ended, Brian Kaplan had a question. He is the team’s assistant pitching coach and director of pitching development. The Phillies had outlined an offseason plan for Sánchez, a lanky lefty from the Dominican Republic, and it went haywire. Sánchez was supposed to add bulk. But a long illness sapped him of strength. He lost more than 15 pounds. It compromised him in the spring when he failed to make an impression while the Phillies scrambled to fill the back of their rotation.

In truth, Sánchez didn’t dominate for Lehigh Valley last year, either, but he did accomplish one goal the team set out for him; by the summer, he had gained 25 pounds. That coincided with a small window of opportunity to grab the fifth spot in the rotation. The Phillies had used Matt Strahm in the role early in the season, but they were worried about his innings count. Dylan Covey had gotten a couple starts but was bombed by the Braves in his most recent one, and Bailey Falter, who had been in the rotation earlier, was in the minors and out with a neck injury. So Sánchez got the nod on June 17 against the A’s; he went four scoreless innings and allowed one hit. His tumbling changeup — which looks like the world’s least erratic forkball — clicked, and he never gave the Phillies a reason to boot him from the rotation. Even the acquisition of Michael Lorenzen didn’t cost him his job. The Phillies happily went with a six-man rotation rather than deprive themselves of Sánchez’s services.

Over the first half of this season, Sánchez has proven that his performance last year was no fluke. He’s now been up for a full calendar year, throwing 175 1/3 innings with 157 strikeouts with a 3.08 ERA across 31 starts. He surely won’t continue his rate of home run avoidance (just one allowed this season), but even if his home run rate were to regress heavily toward the mean and cause his ERA to jump to the low 3.00s, he’d still worthy of his rotation spot.

So, what’s the projection look like? Suffice it to say, ZiPS was not very excited about him coming into 2023.

That’s not disastrous; with those numbers, he would’ve been a competent spot starter/long reliever. But it wasn’t even a shadow of what he’s accomplished in the last year. So let’s spin up his current, much sunnier projection. How sunny? Let’s just say Tom Glavine pops up in the top 10 on his comps list and leave it at that.

Most teams would be ecstatic to have this projection from their no. 2 starter. From your no. 4, this is like waking up one morning and finding out that your garden hose somehow makes its own IPA. Based on these numbers, ZiPS projects Sánchez to be worth $27.3 million over the four-year extension, making this a decent value from the point of view of the Phils. The deal becomes even better for Philadelphia when you look at the option years; ZiPS projects Sánchez’s value for 2029 and ’30 to be worth a combined $41 million in free agency, $11 million more than the base value of those years if the Phillies pick up his options.

That leaves Ranger Suárez as the only key member of the rotation who might not be around long term. He’s set to hit free agency after the 2025 season, and considering his excellence this year, he probably won’t come cheap if the Phillies try to extend him; a six-year deal would cost them $135 million, according to ZiPS. Having Sánchez around until the end of the decade at such a generous rate could provide Philadelphia the flexibility to dole out more money to keep Suárez.

Before we go, I’ve been looking for an excuse to project the Phillies rotation, so I’m not letting this opportunity slip away! Using the innings allocation in our depth charts, ZiPS currently projects Phillies starting pitchers to accumulate 8.6 more WAR over the rest of the season, which would give their starters a combined 22.7 WAR for the entire 2024 campaign. Here’s how that compares to the best starting staffs in the five-man rotation era, which I’m somewhat arbitrarily starting in 1980:

That’s quite rarified air. Based on these projections, the Phillies would finish the season with baseball’s best rotation in more than a decade, since the 2013 Tigers. And with the Sánchez extension coming on the heels of the deals for Nola and Wheeler, Philadelphia has the chance to keep this party going for several more years.

JJ Wetherholt is in an unusual position. A third-year finance student at West Virginia University with an interest in math who once considered going to law school, Wetherholt is leaving college early, and says his parents couldn’t be more proud.

As prestigious and lucrative as a career in law or finance can be, neither holds a candle to professional baseball, and Wetherholt is one of the leading candidates for the top pick in this year’s draft.

In addition to academic All-Big 12 and All-American honors, Wetherholt hit .373/.471/.632 with 29 homers, 56 stolen bases, and more walks than strikeouts in 143 career college games. A compact, sinewy 5-foot-10, 190-pound second baseman with great bat speed from an open, left-handed stance, he’s a lock to become WVU’s highest draft pick ever. (The record is currently 11th overall, shared by Alek Manoah in 2019 and right-hander Chris Enochs in 1997.) Read the rest of this entry »