Justin Steele has an uncommon pitch profile and an uncomplicated approach to his craft. He also has an outside chance of capturing this year’s NL Cy Young award. With two starts remaining (one if the Cubs clinch a Wild Card berth prior to Sunday’s regular-season finale), the 28-year-old southpaw is 16–5 with a 3.00 ERA and a 2.99 FIP over 168 innings. He’s not only been Chicago’s best pitcher, but he’s also been one of the best in the Senior Circuit.

Steele’s emergence as a frontline starter was portended by last year’s performance. While his won-lost record was an anything-but-eye-catching 4–7, his 3.18 ERA and his 3.20 FIP weren’t notably higher than this year’s marks. Moreover, his strikeout and ground-ball rates were actually better, as were his xFIP and HR/9. His BABIP was nearly identical. The only meaningful difference, on paper, was his walk rate, which at 3.78 was essentially double this season’s 1.88.

Prior to his last outing — a game in which he was BABIP’d to death by six consecutive fourth-inning singles — I approached Steele in Wrigley Field’s home clubhouse to get his thoughts on what has been an outstanding season. The following day, I asked Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy about the pitch characteristics that make Steele a Cy Young contender.

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David Laurila: Won-lost record and walk rate aside, a lot of your numbers aren’t all that different from last year’s. Are you more or less the same pitcher?

Justin Steele: “I would say that I’m better. The pitches are the same, I’m the same pitcher as far as that goes, but I’ve been more consistent this year. I’m not walking as many guys. I’m being competitive throughout the count, I’ve cut down on non-competitive pitches big time. So yeah, a lot more consistent.”

Laurila: Were you happy with last year?

Steele: “I think so. I was definitely happy with how I finished up [a 0.99 ERA over his last seven starts]. I felt like the entire season I was improving. That’s something that’s really important to me, always improving from start to start.”

Laurila: What’s behind this year’s improved consistency?

Steele: “I think it’s just more reps, getting more and more comfortable out there each time I take the ball. It’s like anything in life: you do it more and you get more comfortable doing it. You also get better at it.” Read the rest of this entry »

With apologies to Matt Olson, Freddie Freeman, and Corbin Carroll, the race for the NL MVP Award has essentially boiled down to two players: Ronald Acuña Jr. and Mookie Betts. It’s an incredibly close one, with the pair producing such similar batting lines that they’re tied for the NL lead with a 169 wRC+. Betts has the edge in both the FanGraphs and Baseball Reference versions of WAR, Acuña has the edge in several counting stats, and each player has added some unique additional flavors into the mix.

For Acuña, those largely center around his prolific baserunning. Aided by the new rules — particularly the limits on pickoff throws — and unhindered by a drop in sprint speed in the wake of his 2021 ACL tear, he’s stolen 68 bases, the highest total in the majors since 2010. With his 40th homer coming against the Nationals on Friday, he has just the fifth 40–40 season ever, and now the most steals of any player in that club, surpassing Alex Rodriguez’s 46 from 1998 (to go with 42 homers). With one week remaining, he needs two steals to become the first player ever to combine 40 homers and 70 steals in the same campaign, in what’s arguably the greatest power-speed combo season anybody has seen.

There’s certainly value to such an accomplishment, though we’re entering the realm of intangibility. We’re already crediting the value of his homers and steals within the context of the rest of his offensive stat line, but things like wOBA, wRC+, and WAR don’t tell us how much to care about a player reaching round-numbered milestones like these, even if they’re without precedent. Even less clear-cut is the attempt to examine the extent to which Acuña’s baserunning has helped his teammates, mainly by giving them more fastballs to hit. Colleague Esteban Rivera established that yes, players do see more fastballs when he’s on first, but their performances against those fastballs wasn’t uniformly better. “Acuña is most likely helping his teammates see more heaters,” he concluded. “What they do with those pitches, though, is completely up to them.”

Betts isn’t without his own cool counting stat achievements. His two-run double off Ross Stripling on Saturday night gave him 105 RBIs out of the leadoff spot, a record (Acuña is third at 101). Meanwhile, he’s hit 12 leadoff homers, one shy of the single-season record set by Alfonso Soriano in 2003, and his career-high 39 homers are two shy of the post-World War II record for the most by a player listed at 5-foot-9 or shorter, currently held by Roy Campanella. But bigger (if more difficult to measure) impact he’s made is with his sudden burst of Zobristian versatility: In the wake of Gavin Lux tearing his right ACL in late February, Betts has started 69 games in the infield — 56 at second base and another 12 at shortstop — in his most infield play in nearly a decade. Read the rest of this entry »

Hao-Yu Lee will be one of eight Detroit Tigers prospects participating in the forthcoming Arizona Fall League, and while he doesn’t possess the highest profile of the bunch, he does have the most-traveled backstory. Acquired from the Philadelphia Phillies at the trade deadline in exchange for Michael Lorenzen, the 20-year-old infielder hails from Taiwan and began dreaming of playing professionally in the United States at age 16 after a strong performance in a U-18 tournament, in Korea. Two years earlier he’d excelled in a tournament that took place 15-plus miles southwest of Comerica Park.

The Phillies signed Hao-Yu in June 2021—the Cincinnati Reds and Tampa Bay Rays were among the other MLB teams that had expressed interest — once he’d finished high school. No. 8 on our Phillies Top Prospects list with a 40+ FV coming into this season, he slashed .273/.362/.399 before going on the shelf with a quad strain in mid-August. He ended up playing in just eight games for the High-A West Michigan Whitecaps before missing the duration of the campaign.

The first big-league game Hao-Yu attended was in 2017 when he was competing in the Junior League World Series, which is held annually in Taylor, Michigan. He doesn’t remember if the Tigers won that day, but he does recall his first impression of Comerica Park. “I told my teammates that I was going to play here someday,” the confident youngster said of the experience.

He also remembers the tournament, and for good reason. Not only did Taoyuan, Taiwan capture the international bracket, they went on to beat Kennett Square, Pennsylvania in the finals. Moreover, Hao-Yu “raked that tournament; five games, five homers!” Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been fascinated by the idea of mirror image twins since the Giants signed Taylor Rogers last December, pairing him up with his brother Tyler and illuminating me to their unusual genetic connection. As monozygotic (i.e., identical) twins, they come from the same fertilized ovum and, thus, the same DNA. Taylor, however, is left-handed, and Tyler is right-handed, a manifestation of their mirror image relationship.

Mirror image twinship makes for a perfect metaphor, and as a writer, nothing excites me more. It’s like a real-world example of a contronym, a word that can have two opposite meanings in different contexts; the word “dusting” always looks the same, but sometimes it means to remove dust, and other times it means to sprinkle it on. It’s the same thing with the Rogers twins. They look exactly the same until they take the mound. Read the rest of this entry »

Where is the line that tells you whether a pitcher is a starter or reliever? It’s subjective, but there are a few benchmarks that baseball folks have used over time to determine a pitcher’s role. Do they have more than two pitches? Do they have extreme splits? Does their velocity hold as their pitch count increases? Depending on the answer to any of these questions (and more), you’ll have a decent idea of a pitcher’s fate as a starter or reliever.

Sometimes, though, pitchers get moved to the bullpen simply because the other five options at any given time seem more viable, and not necessarily because they didn’t possess the skills to dish out six quality innings. The latter firmly describes Michael King.

King was a starter throughout his entire minor league career and even started a few games during his debut season in 2020 before settling into a long relief role in 2021 thanks to a crowded Yankees rotation. But the version of King we saw in the minors and those two seasons is not what he is now. For that, we have to reference his 2022 season, when he fully embraced his ability to supinate and started throwing his sweeper as his only breaking ball, upping the usage to 30%; the year prior, he only threw it 10% of the time. Before suffering a season-ending elbow fracture, he posted a 2.29 ERA and 2.23 FIP in 51 innings, delivering several multi-inning outings out of the bullpen.

On top of his sinker and sweeper, King displayed his ability to mix in his four-seamer and changeup at the right times, both of which have been crucial to his success as a starter; more on that later. That gave him a four-pitch mix where each pitch was at least average and more than one that was plus. That’s the exact kind of arsenal you’d expect a rotation arm to have, but coming off elbow surgery and bullpen success and facing another full starting five, the expectation wasn’t that he’d get the chance to pitch in that role. Read the rest of this entry »

To say 2023 has not exactly been the Year of the Padres should win some kind of solid gold trophy awarded for understatement. After 2021’s epic collapse, they returned to the playoffs last year, and though the NLCS ended in disappointment, they at least got the satisfaction of ending Los Angeles’ season early. With a full year of Juan Soto and the return of Fernando Tatis Jr., surely things would be looking up for the mustard-and-brown! Not so much. Though the Padres haven’t eclipsed 2021 in terms of dramatic failure, they’ve been mired in mediocrity the whole year; the last time they woke up in the morning with at least a .500 record was back in May. A 10–18 record in August suggested they’d go out once again with a whimper. Instead, they’ve gone 13–5 in September, easily their best month, and with a seven-game win streak, they’ve kept the ember of their playoff hopes just hot enough to make a fire potentially. And I mean that literally, since I’m currently thinking of a similar scene at the end of The Fifth Element as I write this.

Many of the elements to make an improbable run are there. For one, there are good reasons to think the Padres are a better team than their record. With a run differential that suggests an 85–68 record — and run differential is still more predictive than actual record — they’d be on the verge of clinching a playoff berth. That kind of thing may not save jobs, but it does give them a better chance at reeling off an impressive run of wins over the final week. Also helping out is that two of the competition have spent the last week in a state of collapse. The Cubs have lost 10 of their last 13 games, including six to direct competitor Arizona and series losses to the last-place Rockies and the last-place Pirates. The Giants, at 6–12 for the month, haven’t been much better and just lost Alex Cobb for at least the rest of the regular season. San Diego, meanwhile, gets six games against the White Sox and Cardinals, two teams that haven’t shown a pulse all season, and three games against those stumbling Giants.

Over at MLB.com, our friend Mike Petriello wrote about San Diego’s lackluster campaign and ran down some of the scenarios that need to happen for postseason baseball in San Diego. But let’s go one step farther and crunch some numbers for the Padres. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past few weeks, I’ve done a few big-picture stories looking at things like bunting and aggressive baserunning. Small ball, you might say if you were feeling charitable. “That Max Carey-Lookin’ Nonsense,” you might say otherwise.

During that process, I kept running into Rockies center fielder Brenton Doyle. Not literally, of course. Doyle is extremely fast (98th-percentile sprint speed); I could not run into him unless I were chasing him on a bicycle over level ground, and even then it’d be dicey.

Doyle gets the most out of his legs. He’s 19-for-23 in stolen bases on just 101 opportunities, and the defensive components of his Baseball Savant page are all in red and pegged to the right: 99th percentile not just in arm value, but range as well. Despite playing just 112 games, he’s been 19.4 defensive runs above average, making him the fourth-most valuable defender in the league this season and the second-most valuable non-catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s starting. The playoffs are coming, and the baseball is getting more intense. Bats will flip. Tempers will flare. Players will curse even more than they do already. That’s great. Everybody loves playoff baseball. But that also makes this a good time to appreciate baseball’s tender side. I would like to draw your attention to two plays that happened on Tuesday. Both were plays at the plate, and in both, the catcher and the baserunner crashed into each other. And then, in both, immediately after crashing into each other, the catcher and the runner checked to make sure that the other was ok. Our topic for the day is not sensual baseball, but rather sensitive baseball.

It’s not just that I love these moments, it’s that they fulfill a need. When two players collide, there is something in me that sees it as an opportunity for kindness. I find myself hoping that they’ll check in on each other, that they’ll let their humanity shine through the adrenaline and desire and competitiveness. And when the two players do in fact take the time to check on each other, it makes me feel good. In the middle of the game, I am willing more kindness into the world. I’m not sure why. That’s certainly not the main reason I care about baseball, but it’s there. Read the rest of this entry »

The rookies took the spotlight this past Saturday in Baltimore, as the Orioles battled the Rays and clinched their first playoff berth since 2016 via an 8-0 victory. Leading the way on the offensive side was 22-year-old Gunnar Henderson, who led off the first inning with a first-pitch single off Tyler Glasnow and came around to score the game’s first run, then added a two-run homer in the second and an RBI single in the fourth, helping to stake rookie starter Grayson Rodriguez to a 5-0 lead. The 23-year-old righty turned in the best start of his brief big league career, spinning eight shutout innings while striking out seven and allowing just five baserunners. A day later, when the Orioles beat the Rays in 11 innings to reclaim the AL East lead, a trio of rookies — Shintaro Fujinami, Yennier Cano, and DL Hall — combined to allow just one hit and one unearned run over the final three frames.

Earlier this month, colleague Chris Gilligan highlighted the contributions of this year’s rookie class. With just under four weeks to go in the regular season at that point, rookie pitchers and position players had combined to produce more WAR than all but three other classes since the turn of the millennium. Collectively they’re now second only to the Class of 2015 (more on which below), and since the publication of that piece, four teams besides the Orioles, all heavy with rookie contributions, have made headway in the playoff races. The Dodgers clinched the NL West for the 10th time in 11 years on Saturday, while the Mariners and Diamondbacks are clinging to Wild Card spots, and the Reds are in the thick of the NL race as well. Read the rest of this entry »

They say everything in baseball happens in cycles. Actually, I’m not sure if they say that, but it certainly sounds like a real quote. And that’s fortunate for me, because today I’d like to talk about another thing that happens in cycles: Tommy Kahnle being a valuable reliever. Years after it seemed like that might never happen again, he’s back on the Yankees and pitching well, to the tune of a 2.66 ERA and 3.97 FIP across 40.2 innings of work, that despite a four-walk disaster of an outing on Wednesday night.

The last time Kahnle was good and healthy was also with the Yankees, in 2019. Before that, you’d have to go back to 2017 (split between the White Sox and Yankees). He was hurt and ineffective in 2018, then only pitched a combined 13.2 innings from 2020 to ’22 due to injury. But now here he is, back at it, though you might not know it thanks to the Yankees’ general desultoriness (probably not a word, but my spellcheck didn’t flag it, so let’s roll with it). Read the rest of this entry »