Archive for Daily Graphings

Sunday afternoon, Domonic Brown did something he’s been doing a lot of lately. Brown faced Mike Fiers in the bottom of the first, with two on and two out. After a first-pitch curveball found the zone, Fiers missed three straight times, with a heater and a couple changeups. Brown scooted up in the box, and Fiers came inside with a cutter, or a slider, as if that detail’s important. Brown saw it, swung at it, and blasted it, way out to right field for a three-run dinger. It was Brown’s 14th home run in 32 starts. It was his 16th home run of the season. Brown is the National League leader in that category, after a spring in which people were concerned he might not find enough playing time.

Sunday afternoon, Domonic Brown did something he hadn’t done for a while. Brown faced Tom Gorzelanny in the bottom of the seventh, with one on and two out. After a first-pitch slider found the zone, Gorzelanny missed three straight times, with a slider and a couple heaters. The 3-and-1 pitch was a fastball that Brown went after and tipped for a strike. The next and final pitch was a slider that just missed, a little low and a little away. Brown watched it, and Brown walked — unintentionally — for the first time since April 30. Brown had just walked the day before, too, but that one was done on purpose.

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Major League Baseball’s amateur draft starts on Thursday. MLB Network and MLB.com will broadcast and stream, respectively, pick-by-pick coverage of the first four rounds: Round One, Competitive Balance Round A, Round Two, and Competitive Balance Round B. In essence, the top 73 spots. The draft will continue untelevised on Friday and Saturday.

We’re getting you ready for the draft with two posts. Last Thursday, in Part 1, I explained the changes to draft selection order brought about by the collective bargaining agreement executed in late 2011. Certain changes didn’t take full effect until this year, so even if you followed last year’s draft, give Part 1 a read as a refresher.

Today, in Part 2, I’ll explain the limits placed on how much each team can spend to sign each draft pick and on all their draft picks combined. The first restriction is known as the draft slot value. The second is known as the draft bonus pools.

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Among famous baseball quotes, perhaps none applies better to Scott Kazmir than “The game is 95 percent mental; the other half is physical.” The Cleveland Indians left-hander has had an enigmatic career. From 2006-2008 he represented Tampa Bay in a pair of All-Star games and once led the American League in strikeouts. In 2009, he began a downward spiral that saw his overpowering stuff become pedestrian, his command abysmal. He passed through Anaheim on his way to oblivion.

In a May, 2010 interview, Kazmir told me, “The past couple years, I felt like I was fighting myself the entire time. Now everything feels on point.“ Looking back, that feeling was fleeting — or perhaps he was in denial — because a year later he logged a 17.02 ERA in five Triple-A appearances and found himself out of affiliated baseball.

Some soul-searching followed. Kazmir wasn’t sure if he was done with the game or not. And if he did return, could he solve the puzzle — equal parts mental and mechanical — that had been his undoing?

Last season he returned to action with the independent league Sugar Land Skeeters, and this spring he overcame long odds by earning a spot in the Indians’ starting rotation. Showing flashes of his old self, he has a 9.1 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 in eight appearances. His velocity is back to where it was five years ago.

Kazmir talked about his struggles and the road back — including the mental challenges — when Cleveland visited Boston in late May.

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Hey there, people I’ve almost certainly never met before in my life, and welcome to the second part of the eighth edition of The Worst Of The Best. This right here is a link to the second part of the seventh edition, from last Friday. Here’s a link to all of the posts in the series, if you want something organized. In the earlier post today, a probably attractive commenter asked why I even bother with these introductions, instead of just getting right to the list. There are a few reasons! One, these posts include HTML jumps, and we don’t want to have .gifs right on the FanGraphs front page. We actually do care about load times. Two, because I never like to repeat introductions, I’m curious to see how I’ll be starting these things in September. I’m experimenting on myself. And three, it’s convenient to have a little explanation of what’s going on in each post, just in case someone is new to the series. Sure, I could just post a link to an explanation, but I hate links. The Internet relies too heavily on links. It’s more reader-friendly to provide all the necessary details in the same place. I care about you. We care about you.

We’re going to talk about wild swings, or swings at pitches that weren’t close to being strikes. What you see below will be a top-five list of the wildest swings, from between May 24 – May 30. It’s based on PITCHf/x and there are screenshots and .gifs, albeit fewer images than in the wildest-pitches post. Eliminated are checked swings and swings on hit-and-runs, because I’m a scientist and these were scientific determinations. This week, I’m also providing for you a bonus! That’s one fewer bonus than last week, but one more bonus than you should rightfully expect. Cherish this. Off we go.

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Hey there everybody, and welcome to this week’s edition of The World’s Most Zaniest Desks, wherein we discuss outlandish desks of all shapes and sizes. You “wood” “knot” believe what we have in store! I’m just kidding, this is the first part of the eighth edition of The Worst Of The Best. For the first part of the seventh edition, from last Friday afternoon, go right here. And then keep on following links until you get all the way back to the first part of the first edition, which is important somehow. If you’d like to read about desks and desk types, here’s this link. I apologize for misleading you before. That was dastardly.

Here we talk about pitches that were far away from the center of the strike zone. You’re going to see five of them, and I eliminate intentional balls, because otherwise you’d just see five intentional balls, and I wouldn’t have anything interesting to say about them. “The pitcher wants to walk this batter intentionally, or ‘on purpose’.” It’s a PITCHf/x-based top five, and I think this time around I have 18 images. So get ready for all of those, if that requires preparation on your part. We’re covering May 24 – May 30. Some pitches that just missed: Cody Allen to Joey Votto on May 28, Gio Gonzalez to Adam Jones on May 27, and Rick Porcello to Clint Barmes on May 28. In Porcello’s defense, you don’t want to pitch Barmes anywhere in the strike zone. The list is coming; won’t you join me?

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Thursday night, the Tigers got yet another great pitching performance from their starting rotation, as Doug Fister struck out 12 over seven shutout innings. But a couple of hours after he came out of the game the Tigers walked off extra-inning losers, and it was basically all manager Jim Leyland’s fault.

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The Detroit Tigers starters currently have a 2.54 FIP, which translates into a FIP- of 62, easily the best in baseball. In fact, it’s easily the best FIP- in baseball history, and as I wrote a month ago, Detroit’s starters have a chance to write themselves into the history books with their 2013 performance. But, instead of just writing a post updating their pace — they’d basically need to post a FIP- of 83 the rest of the way to break the record for best FIP relative to league average — I thought it might be interesting to look at how the best rotations in baseball history dominated.

For instance, the narrative around the Tigers current rotation mostly has to do with their strikeouts. They are on pace to shatter the all time record for strikeouts by a rotation, and the swing-and-miss stuff possessed by guys like Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer makes it easy to credit the strikeout rate as the primary driver of their success. However, once you compare the individual components to the league average, their strikeout rate becomes just a part of the story, and maybe not even the biggest part.

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Detroit was supposed to run away with the 2013 American League Central. It may still happen, but at the moment, Cleveland is right there with them. The revitalization of Justin Masterson and the emergence of Zach MacAllister have kept the pitching afloat, and free-agent signings Nick Swisher, Michael Bourn, and Mark Reynolds have been a big boost to the offense. Other factors could be mentioned, but Carlos Santana becoming perhaps the best hitter on the team seems significant both for this season and beyond.

Santana was the big prize of the 2008 trade that sent Casey Blake to the Dodgers. Santana has always hit well, particularly for a catcher, since coming up to the majors in 2010. While it was enough to cover for his deficiencies behind the plate, in 2012 his drop in power was troubling. In 2013, the 27-year-old Santana might be becoming the superstar that some envisioned when he was a prospect. Despite having a poor May at the plate, his overall season line still stands at .294/.396/.503 (147 wRC+, second-best among qualified catchers, just behind Joe Mauer’s 148). While it is still early, after 202 plate appearances, Santana’s better performance seems to be based primarily on two things: the return of his pre-2012 power, and a significantly higher BABIP. One or both may be an early-season blip, but there are at least some signs that Santana has made some important and perhaps long-term improvements.

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Entering May, Minnesota Twins Byron Buxton was my favorite to seize the label of number one prospect in baseball entering 2014. Diamondbacks pitcher Archie Bradley ranked second as he pushed through High-A and finished April in the Southern League. Shortstop Francisco Lindor of the Cleveland Indians debuted in the third spot after a dominant month offensively. Twins’ Miguel Sano, claimed the fourth spot, as well as the label of best power hitting prospect in the game. Rounding out the top five was Boston Red Sox prospect Xander Bogaerts, who received a partial mulligan for a weak April due to his being the highest rated prospect in baseball entering 2013 not expected to surpass rookie at bats/innings pitched limits.

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There’s a reason catchers often make great managers and coaches. The mindset that you get from watching every play unfold from behind the plate can inform practically every play. And so, when you find out that John Jaso is an asset with the bat and on the basepaths, it’s no surprise that you can trace these things back to his training behind the plate.

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