Joe Maddon sees a suppressed run-scoring environment across baseball and feels the way to bring back more offense is… well, he doesn’t really know. The Tampa Bay Rays manager – oops, make that former Tampa Bay Rays manager – had thoughts on the subject when we spoke in September. They were more musings than manifestos.

I asked Maddon if he sees an irreversible trend or simply a cyclical dip His answer suggested the former, with a nod in the direction of the bullpen.

“Offense hasn’t benefited at all from any of the new discoveries in the game,” said Maddon. “It’s only been injured by it. Along with the subtraction of PEDs, there’s informed data on pitching and defense, which has really slanted the field in favor of that area of the game. There are also accelerated bullpens. Look at Kansas City’s bullpen, Oakland’s bullpen, Baltimore’s bullpen. Specialization has really taken over.”

It’s hard to argue Maddon’s last point. Not only did teams hit just .251 this year – the lowest average in over 40 years — from the seventh inning on that number was .241. Teams also fanned an average of 7.7 times per game, the highest in history. Bullpens were a big part of that, with a whopping 41 qualifying relievers logging a K/9 of 10.0 or better.

*Attention fans of the Detroit Tigers: you might want to skip the next paragraph. Read the rest of this entry »

The eleven-pitch plate appearance with two outs in the sixth inning Friday night ended with the deciding run for the Royals, and so it was a work of beauty for those supporting the team in blue. But in practice, it was a workmanlike effort and a mistake that finally ended the battle between Eric Hosmer and Javier Lopez.

The first pitch was a mistake from Lopez. High in the zone is something that he’s mostly gone away from since his career renaissance. Look at his heat maps from early in his career and his heat maps from the last three years, when he said that he needed to concentrate on “being able to work down in the zone.”

But Hosmer only swung at about a quarter of the first pitches he saw this year, just barely less than league average, and so Lopez stole a strike.

The second pitch was a nastier pitch, on the outside corner, low and away, from an arm slot that should give Hosmer fits. Hosmer, after the game said that he was just looking to “stay the other way and put the ball in play.” The first foul went straight down.

The third pitch was probably supposed to finish off Hosmer one-two-three. A 71 mile per hour breaking pitch that just caught the bottom of the zone… against a guy that has slowly seen more slow curve balls and had his worst year against them this year. But Hosmer managed another foul ball. Hosmer said he was just trying to “shorten up.” The second foul ball went down the first base line.

The fourth pitch was probably another mistake. A bit of a hanging slider in the middle of the zone, Hosmer still didn’t quite square it up, but it looked close. Another foul ball, this time straight back.

Pitch five was more than a foot outside, relatively easy to lay off of.

Pitch six found the outside corner, but Hosmer was ready for it and again fouled off the pitch, this time down the third-base line. At this point, he felt that he had “fought off some good pitches” and that “the more balls you see off a guy, it really does lock you in there.” Normally it’s because you walk, but outcomes (and slugging percentage) do usually get better as the at-bat lengthens.

Pitch seven was a fastball in the dirt. Hosmer laid off. Despite having one of his worst years with respect to reaching, he was able to identify that pitch as in the dirt early enough to avoid swinging.

Pitch eight was a slider low. This time, Hosmer swung and was lucky to foul the ball off. Early on the pitch, though, he fouled towards his own dugout on the first base side.

Lopez walked off the mound and sighed often. Pitch nine was a slider, six inches off the outside corner. But Lopez hadn’t once ventured to the inner half of the plate, and so now Hosmer could hang off the outside corner. You could see from the earlier foul that he was ready to go the other way. He reached for the ball and fouled it off. Straight down.

Pitch ten was a fastball, in about the same location as pitch nine. Hosmer didn’t swing.

Pitch eleven was probably a mistake. A fastball, a couple inches off the bottom of the zone, and an inch in from the corner, with Hosmer looking in that direction, and “just trying to put the ball in play,” that was probably meant to be a little further outside. But by early results on command f/x, it seems that pitchers probably miss their spots by 13.8 inches on average.

And so, Hosmer, who was hoping to put his hands “in the load position as early as possible” and go the other way, put this swing on the ball.

Looks a little different from the swing he used to homer in the ALDS.

Javier Lopez made some mistakes. Throw eleven pitches to one batter, and you’re likely to make a mistake or two or three. But Eric Hosmer tailored his approach and his swing to best take advantage of that mistake, and deserves all the credit for his (game-winning?) run-producing single in Game Three of the World Series Friday night.

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With the World Series shifting to San Francisco for Game 3, the Royals have made some changes to their lineup. They’re not starting anybody as the designated hitter, because that would be against the rules. Ned Yost has elected to start Jarrod Dyson over Nori Aoki, which seems like the right thing to do. And Mike Moustakas has been bumped up to the fifth spot, with Alex Gordon soaring to second. It’s about as good a lineup as the Royals could have, under the circumstances, although there are two lefties back-to-back.

I’m not going to sit here and give you a prediction. However, there is one thing that might very slightly change the odds. You’ve seen broadcasts talk about x-factors before? Normally, they’re meaningless. Hell, maybe this one’s meaningless. But for this game, for this particular game, Moustakas should be one of the Royals’ best hitters. However small an advantage that presents, Moustakas has a couple of platoon factors working to his benefit.

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The Royals find themselves in an interesting situation. They’re in the World Series! Wow! And within that, with the series shifting now to San Francisco, the Royals are in an interesting sub-situation. Alex Gordon ought to start in the outfield, obviously. Lorenzo Cain ought to start in the outfield, obviously, as well. But then you’ve got Norichika Aoki and Jarrod Dyson. Aoki has been the starter in right field for a while, but now with the rules changing for three games, it’s time for Ned Yost to also make a change and keep Aoki on the bench at the beginning. Kansas City should go with the ultimate outfield.

This isn’t just a hypothetical suggestion, by the way. The matter is on Yost’s mind. Sometime Friday, he’ll make his call, and while it’s generally safest to bet on continuity, Yost’s been nothing if not unpredictable these last few weeks.

Ned Yost acknowledged possibility Jarrod Dyson might start tomorrow. Nori Aoki has more value off the bench than Dyson as a pinch hitter.

— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) October 24, 2014

The ultimate outfield looks like this:

LF: Gordon
CF: Dyson
RF: Cain

Cain, defensively, is outstandingly good. So it tells you something that Yost likes to have Dyson in center field, with Cain shifting to right. Actually, it tells you a couple of things: Dyson, also, is outstandingly good, and Cain might well be more comfortable in a corner. Anyhow, the difference between the ultimate outfield and the ordinary outfield is that Dyson subs in for Aoki, and swaps places with Cain. The ultimate outfield is weaker at the plate, but is just stupid good not at the plate.

Dyson bats left-handed. Aoki also bats left-handed. There’s a strong argument to be made that the Royals should use the ultimate outfield against all right-handed pitchers. But that obviously wasn’t going to happen with the Royals playing by American League rules. Now, the National League rules change things up somewhat. They should provide enough incentive to pencil Dyson into the starting lineup.

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.

Buster Posey hasn’t been quite himself this postseason. Through Wednesday’s game in Kansas City, he’s batted .288/.333/.288, which isn’t terrible but has included an un-Poseyish power outage. His batting line was better during the NLDS against Washington, which is ironic because most of the failures I’m about to talk about took place during that series.

My topic isn’t how Posey’s been getting on base. It’s what he’s been doing after getting on base: specifically, getting thrown out on the bases. During the four-game NLDS, Buster Posey got himself cut down four times. After a clean NLCS, he added an out at home in Game One of the World Series to push his postseason total this year to five.

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The World Series is headed to San Francisco, which means Bruce Bochy has a decision to make. The games in Kansas City allowed him to start Michael Morse at DH, getting another power hitter into the line-up without forcing Morse to run around the outfield, but under NL rules, Morse will either have to play left field or come off the bench as a pinch-hitter. Morse is a terrible defender when healthy, and it’s not clear that he’s recovered enough from his oblique strain to live up to even his own low standards with the glove, but then again, the competition is converted first baseman Travis Ishikawa, who isn’t exactly a defensive standout himself.

If you’re going to have a defensively challenged left fielder, might as well pick the one with the better bat, right? Well, I’m not sure that those should really be the two choices being debated here. I’d like to suggest that maybe the best option isn’t either Ishikawa or Morse; instead, maybe the Giants best chance to win would come from starting Juan Perez.

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The finalists for the 2014 Rawlings’ Gold Glove Awards were announced on Thursday afternoon, and if you’re here on the internet with me, you know how much people hate the Gold Glove Awards.

Part of that is for good reason. For a long time, the Gold Glove Awards were pretty much a joke. Rafael Palmeiro has three. Derek Jeter has five. There have also been tons of worthy defenders to earn Gold Gloves, but throughout history it’s seemed to be more of an award that valued good hitters who weren’t terrible at defense, rather than the game’s best actual defenders.

But! Things appear to be getting better. Last season, the MLB introduced a “sabermetric component” to the decision making process. Advanced defensive metrics are still a hotly debated topic, but I think we can mostly agree that they do a better job than the “errors and the eye test” method that has been used for decades. There were still some questionable choices last year, sure, there are questionable choices this year and there will continue to be questionable choices in the future, because awards are subjective and people are never going to see eye-to-eye.

I think the eye test has its merits, but since this is FanGraphs, let’s imagine a world where the Gold Glove Awards are decided strictly by the numbers. I did a similar post last year when I was still a wee Community Blog writer, and I’m going to use a similar method this year.
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Scott Feldman knows a lot about pitching — the 31-year-old Houston Astros righthander just completed his tenth big-league season – which means he knows a lot about baseballs. When he gets a new one on the mound, Feldman immediately recognizes its specific shape and texture. Not every baseball feels exactly the same.

Feldman is likewise familiar with the fine line between success and failure. He’s never been a power pitcher, which means he needs to constantly look for an edge, be it physical or mental. He found several in the second half of the 2014 season, logging a 3.16 ERA over 13 starts.

Feldman addressed nuances of the horsehide sphere – and gave the lowdown on pitching high to Mike Trout – during a late-August visit to Fenway Park.

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Feldman on scuffed balls: “In my opinion, not as many pitchers know how to use a scuffed ball as you might think. When I was a rookie, there were some older guys in the bullpen and I’m sure they all knew how to scuff the ball – how to use it properly – but now it’s probably kind of a lost art. I could get better at it if I hung out with Doug Brocail for a couple hours, but for the most part I get the basic gist. Read the rest of this entry »

The only pitch that should literally never be thrown is a pitch aimed at a hitter’s head.

Anything else, totally fine. You don’t read MGL over the years without learning some things about game theory. Game theory explains that, optimally, you need to be unpredictable. You should bunt just often enough so that your opponent doesn’t know if you’re going to bunt. You should pitch out just often enough so that your opponent doesn’t know if you’re going to pitch out. And you should mix your pitches just enough so that your opponent doesn’t know what pitch will be on the way. It’s simple, if oversimplified: don’t tip your hand. It does your side a disservice.

Game theory is fascinating, and at the same time analytically limiting. When you get to talking about pitch sequences, any pitch, in isolation, is justifiable. Any pitch should/could be thrown more than zero percent of the time. Let’s say there’s a hypothetical that calls for, I don’t know, 60% fastballs in, 39% changeups away, and 1% hanging sliders. That describes no real situation, but anyway. If you see the pitcher throw a fastball, okay, yeah, that should happen sometimes. If he throws a changeup away, same deal. And if he throws a slider down the middle? It seems like a mistake, but every so often it does make sense to do that on purpose, in theory, because otherwise the hitter could just rule the pitch totally out. When a pitch gets totally ruled out, it slightly tips the balance. Part of being unpredictable is the willingness to sometimes do things that don’t seem so good. Surprising mistakes can be surprising successes.

Because of game theory, it’s almost impossible to reasonably criticize any given pitch or pitch sequence. A pitch comes with an n of 1, and stripped from context, you don’t know how many times that pitch would’ve been thrown in the same situation. Taking one pitch and only one pitch, you almost always have to conclude that, maybe it was fine. There’s no such thing as a pitch that absolutely should never be thrown, aside from the one noted at the beginning. This is frustrating, but sometimes sensibility frustrates. So the world can be.

And yet. I think this is against my better judgment, but there’s a pitch I want to criticize. It happened in Wednesday’s Game 2, and it was thrown by Hunter Strickland to Salvador Perez. I can’t declare absolutely that the pitch was a terrible idea, because of all the reasons, but this is about as close as I can get to believing that a pitch shouldn’t have been called. Perez, against Strickland, broke the game open. He did so against a pitch I think he knew damn well was coming.

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