Just when you think he’s finally going to fade into oblivion, Daisuke Matsuzaka just saunters back into the picture. Once again, he’s with the New York Mets, but this time it’s in the brand new role of closer. Just one day after being mentioned by Mets manager Terry Collins as a potential closer candidate, Matsuzaka saved the first game of his career. Given his mix of pitches, it’s not a role that one would expect him to have.
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11 days ago, I wrote about baseball’s new definition of a catch, and how the interpretation of the rule created some ridiculous problems for baserunners on fly balls to the outfield. Applying the transfer rule from the infield to the outfield was an unmitigated disaster, and simply made the game worse. In that piece, I guessed that, due to the slow pace of change in MLB, we would have to live with the rule for the rest of the year, and return to sanity in 2015.
In reality, though, we only had to live with the rule for those last 11 days, because according to Ken Rosenthal, MLB has already reversed course and the old definition of a catch will return to MLB in time for tonight’s games.
Starting Friday night, umpires will rule on catches the way they did in the past, using more of a common-sense approach rather than following the letter of the law, according to major-league sources.
A catch, forceout or tag will be considered legal if a fielder has control of the ball in his glove, but drops the ball after opening his glove to transfer the ball to his throwing hard, sources said. No longer will the fielder be required to successfully get the ball into his throwing hand.
This is the only reasonable definition of a catch, and kudos to MLB for fixing this so quickly. They aren’t exactly known for swift action or reasonable timelines on obvious decisions, but it took them less than a month to realize they had made a mistake and reverse course on their error. For as much grief as MLB got for changing the rule to begin with, they deserve credit for fixing it in an unexpectedly quick fashion.
I do wish we would have seen someone try the “drop the ball on purpose” play, though. Oh well.
When it comes to looking at hitters, there are two ways to come up with a scouting report. One way is to do the scouting yourself. The other is to let the pitchers do it for you.
Every hitter has his own unique skillset, so every hitter gets pitched a little bit differently. As much as pitchers say they prefer to use their strengths over trying to attack the hitters’ weaknesses, what we end up observing is a compromise, an approach that blends knowledge of the pitchers’ strengths with knowledge of the hitters’ strengths.
While a good number of hitters are fairly similar, certain players are attacked in a variety of ways.
FanGraphs has ready access to data about the types of pitches that different hitters see. Owing to their respective strengths and weaknesses, San Francisco’s Marco Scutaro gets a lot more fastballs thrown his direction than Pedro Alvarez.
FanGraphs also has ready access to data about whether hitters see more or fewer pitches in the strike zone. Again, Scutaro sees a lot of strikes, because generally speaking the worst he can do is hit a single. Guys like Josh Hamilton (Angels) and Jose Abreu (White Sox), meanwhile, are pitched around, because they can hit the ball hard and they’re willing to expand their zones.
Consider the second set of data, above. The stats display who gets pitched in the zone, and who gets pitched out of the zone.
But what if we went about that a little differently, with a little more granularity? Let’s look at the guys who get pitched inside the most and the least often? What does that information tell us?
Carlos Beltran understands who he is as a hitter. But that doesn’t mean he’s always the same hitter. The 37-year-old New York Yankees outfielder adapts according to feel and he focuses better in some situations than in others. Still, you can’t argue with the results: He’s hit .283/.356/.497 with 363 home runs since breaking into the big leagues with the Royals in 1998. In 51 postseason games he’s hit .333/.445/.683 with 16 home runs.
Beltran talked hitting prior to last night’s game at Fenway Park.
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Beltran on mechanical adjustments: “Every year, you don’t feel the same so you have to find a way. You find a position where you feel comfortable mechanically and work with that. The way I hit last year compared to how I’m hitting this year is a little bit different. One thing is the position of the bat. Last year I felt good with my hands like this [slightly forward] and this year that feels a little uncomfortable. This year they’re back a little bit.
“When I was coming up in the big leagues, I talked to a lot of guys I looked up to. One of those guys was Edgar Martinez. I asked him if every year he feels the same. He said ‘No, every year I don’t feel the same.’ Your body feels different. Maybe some years you’re into your legs a little more, and other years you’re more comfortable a little bit taller. It’s basically how you feel. For me, left and right are two different swings. Depending on how I feel, I might be the same from both sides or I might be different.
“You need to feel comfortable, but you can’t be doing one thing in one at bat and in the next at bat do something different. You need to be confident with what you’re doing.”
On having a strong base: “I have to feel I’m in my legs. For example, if a pitcher takes a long time to release the baseball my legs are going to get tired. When I feel like the wind is moving me back and forth… like if it’s windy and I feel off-balance, I don’t like that. I need to step out and reset. When I feel set, I feel good hitting-wise. After every swing I take, I try to reset myself and think about my lower body. Once I feel like my lower body is there, then I transfer all my concentration on the pitcher.”
On his approach: “I concentrate on my strength. I’m not a guy who hits the ball a lot to the opposite field. I hit more center and right center and concentrate on getting a pitch in an area I know I can handle. If it’s a pitch on the outside corner, I know I can’t do much with that pitch. Unless I have two strikes, I don’t want to swing at it. If it’s a pitch on the inside corner and I don’t have two strikes, I don’t want to swing at it. That’s a pitch where, even if I take a good hack, I feel I’m not going to do much with it. I have to look for a pitch out over the strike zone, in or away. Basically, near the middle. Pitchers are going to miss and you have to be ready to hit and take advantage of that pitch when they miss.”
On hitting with runners on base: “I love RBIs. I love to drive in runs and take a lot of pride in those situations. I believe I’m a different hitter with guys on base. Leading off an inning, I feel like maybe my concentration is not there. When I have guys in scoring position I concentrate more because I know if I get a hit we can tie a ballgame, take the lead, add to our lead or shorten a deficit.
“You don’t want to make an out, but you have to be realistic. You’re going to fail a lot. I’m not trying to give away at bats, but like I said, I’m a different hitter with guys in scoring position.”
From Michael Wacha’s start Wednesday night in New York, there might be something to learn about the notion of a pitcher either having it or not having it on a particular day. Conventional wisdom is that pitchers have good days and bad days, and sometimes a guy just doesn’t feel it from the start. Through three innings against the Mets, Wacha had nine strikeouts out of a possible 12. In the fourth inning, Wacha had one strikeout out of a possible eight. In other words, Wacha went from doing something historically great to struggling to find the zone, in a matter of minutes. Reality is that a pitcher can find or lose his feel between pitches. How a guy looks at one minute might not mean very much with regard to how he’ll look a few minutes later on.
But while I went into this thinking I’d write about Wacha’s strikeouts, what I stumbled upon is something even more remarkable. There are more high-strikeout games now than ever before, and while Wacha’s feat was certainly unusual, it no longer feels so insane. But how Wacha actually pitched against the Mets — he didn’t really pitch like himself. Pitch mixes vary to some degree all the time, yet Wacha all but abandoned his signature.
When the Tigers decided to swap Prince Fielder for Ian Kinsler — side note: Kinsler is already +1 WAR ahead of Fielder on the season, reinforcing just how great a deal that was for Detroit — it was done, in part, to open up a spot on the field for top prospect Nick Castellanos. Fielder’s departure meant that Miguel Cabrera could move back to first base and Castellanos could take over at the hot corner, improving their defense at both positions. And Castellanos’ minor league track record suggested he would bring some offensive upside to the table as well.
So far, he’s basically lived up to expectations. He came in to the day with a 98 wRC+, right in line with what Steamer and ZIPS forecast before the season began, and that was with a .256 BABIP; give him some positive regression on that front, and the overall package looks like a slightly above average offensive player. While Castellanos is more of a good-at-everything-great-at-nothing kind of hitter, his most positive attribute so far has been his below average strikeout rate; at just 15%, he’s striking out about 25% less than a league average hitter this season.
But while we could have expected a better-than-average strikeout rate from Castellanos based on his minor league track record, the fact that he’s striking out so rarely is actually pretty weird. Because Nick Castellanos, for the first few weeks of 2014, has the 9th lowest contact rate in all of baseball. He has about the same contact rate as Curtis Granderson and B.J. Upton. He’s making contact less often than Ryan Howard, Giancarlo Stanton, and Adam Dunn.
On April 2nd, 2014, just one day removed from April Fools’ Day, the Houston Astros turned in the lineup for their game against the New York Yankees. Dexter Fowler would bat leadoff, Matt Dominguez would hit second and Robbie Grossman would bat in the three hole. The cleanup spot would be filled by Jose Altuve. Altuve is listed at five feet, five inches tall. Since that fateful day on April 2ns, he is now tied with Freddie Patek as the shortest player to bat cleanup since 1974.
Here comes the caveat that the Astros are doing their own thing at the moment and what they do should not be seen as some sort of new-age thinking in regards to winning baseball games. Short dudes in the four hole are not the new market inefficiency. Altuve’s odd lineup placement is just a phase. Like that one weird cousin of yours, Houston is taking some time to figure some stuff out right now.
(Note: The 2014 numbers below do not include yesterday’s performances.)
It’s still April, and the sample sizes are still small, so it’s important not to overreact to early season performances, both positive and negative. Still, we have passed the eighth pole, and it’s not too early to peel back a layer or two of batted-ball data and identify a few players whose early season slumps may be about to cross the line toward becoming somewhat significant trends possibly indicative of a change in true talent level. Read the rest of this entry »
An important point to remember is that defensive shifting isn’t new. As much attention as the shift gets these days from broadcasts and other media, teams have been moving their defenders around for decades. What’s changed are two things: shifts now are a little more individualized, and shifts now are a hell of a lot more common than ever before, by leaps and bounds. Used to be a few guys would get shifted against. Now it isn’t even unusual to get shifted against, since it’s not like it’s only the elite hitters worth a bit of strategizing. Pull and spray tendencies, after all, are similar across the board.
It isn’t just the greats that get shifted against, which is how you end up with situations like the Pirates shifting against Brayan Pena. It doesn’t matter that Brayan Pena isn’t a good hitter — if there are ways to make him worse, any gain is a gain. It’s strategy, on the Pirates’ part, to shift against Pena. And for every strategy, there is a counter-strategy. What you’re about to observe is Brayan Pena trying to beat the Pirates’ shift, from Tuesday night. Did I already mention that Brayan Pena isn’t a good hitter? Yes, okay, good, that’s going to come up again.
The best and the worst thing about baseball is that, during the season, it’s almost never not going on. Every single day brings a new slate of games, and if you actually step back and think about it, it’s kind of overwhelming. The Brewers are off to a hot start, at 15-6. All they have left is another 141 baseball games. The upside is that, if there’s a lousy baseball day, there could be a better baseball day right around the corner. The downside is that, if there’s an incredible baseball day, in a short amount of time it’s yesterday’s news. Baseball allows for only so much time to reflect.
Case in point: it’s Wednesday, and at this writing, on Wednesday, the Marlins and Braves have already finished a game. Because the Marlins and Braves have already played Wednesday, there’s less will to think about what the Marlins and Braves did Tuesday. But just Tuesday night — last night — the Marlins and Braves competed in a classic. As things turned out, Jose Fernandez and Alex Wood put together at least the pitchers’ duel of the season, and perhaps the pitchers’ duel of the last many seasons.
