Back in February, I wrote (and sang) about the electric debut of Edouard Julien, which featured excellent plate discipline and extreme platoon splits. The rookie second baseman ran a 136 wRC+ and put up 2.8 WAR in just 109 games, then hit even better in the postseason. Facing a steady diet of righties, Julien balanced out a precipitously high strikeout rate with an even better walk rate. He also balanced out roughly average raw power by hitting the ball hard consistently. This season, however, his strikeout rate has gone from high to untenable and his contact quality has taken a significant step back. Julien was sent down to Triple-A St. Paul to figure things out in June. Let’s take a look at what’s going on and how he might be able to fix it.

We should start by making it clear that Julien’s season, while disappointing, has not been disastrous by any means. He has a 93 wRC+, including a much improved 98 wRC+ against left-handed pitching (though once again it’s an extremely small sample size). He’s also improved his defense, and as a result, he’s put up 0.8 WAR over his 63 games with Minnesota. Prorated out over a full 162-game season, he’s right around league average at 2.1 WAR. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sorry, assorted old people and grumps of the world. Michael Baumann got you all riled up yesterday by looking into whether clutch exists. It does! It’s inarguably a real thing. It’s also not very predictive, and even maybe not predictive at all. I know! It’s shocking (note: it’s not shocking). After reading that, I had no choice but to look into that other baseball truism: momentum.

There have been plenty of studies about it. The findings are consistently uninteresting. It’s basically this: Momentum probably has some effect, but it’s minimal. You can slice it a ton of different ways and get some version of that conclusion, whether you’re talking about a big win helping the next day or a string of important games begetting more.

I thought I’d add to the literature with a different study. I can’t remember which game in particular, but I was watching some ball last week when a team tied the game in the bottom of the fifth or sixth. One announcer mentioned offhandedly that they were heading in the right direction and had the opposition right where they wanted them. This isn’t rare. If you watch baseball, you’ve heard some version of it for sure. I tuned out before the end of the game, so I can’t tell you whether they were right, but I made a note to look at it later.

That particular definition of momentum – rallying to tie the game in the bottom half of the inning – felt ripe for study. I grabbed game logs from every game played since 2000 to take a crack at finding this effect. I went through the score after every half inning and noted a few things. First, I noted the score differential. Next, I noted the change in differential since the last half inning. Finally, I checked who won the game in the end. That let me find whatever subset I wanted and study the difference between games that were tied when the half-inning began and the ones where the home team tied it up during that half-inning.
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The other week, I was talking to a friend as she fretted over her lack of productivity. Her struggle wasn’t with laziness or a lack of motivation, but rather a severe case of burnout, following her around the way No-Face follows Chihiro in Spirited Away. In the moment, I could see her desperately reaching for more energy to get through the day, like when the chip bag is nearly empty, so you bring it to your mouth and tilt your head back to suck down whatever salty goodness remains.

But instead of encouraging her to power through, I went a different way.

“Y’know, it’s okay to take a break.”

She laughed and said, “That’s what my therapist keeps telling me.”

If you’ve ever described yourself as a perfectionist or a people pleaser, or tied your self-worth to your measurable output, you know taking breaks can be hard.

Athletes learn from the beginning to idolize hard work. Hard work is the salve for every ailment. Wanna get stronger? Work harder. Wanna play better? Work harder. Wanna go pro? Work harder than everyone else. The hardest workers earn their own dedicated titles and recognition, separate from their actual production. Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games played streak earned him the Ironman title. MLB gives out a Heart and Hustle award to whichever player’s heart tells him to hustle the hardest. And every year, we read stories about players and coaches who are the first to arrive to work each morning and the last to leave at night. Read the rest of this entry »

The A’s have been a bummer of a team to follow for a few years now. They’re moving to Vegas. The fans are protesting, but probably fighting a losing battle. They’re going to play in Sacramento, in withering heat, at a (really nice!) minor league stadium. The owner’s a walking punchline. They lost 112 games last year and then made almost no moves over the winter.

Something’s been brewing in the East Bay, though. Not in terms of a surprise playoff contender – they’re 47-68 on the year, and their playoff odds hit 0.0% on June 10. But nonetheless, this is a much better team than last year’s edition, and it’s mostly happened thanks to internal improvements. This version of the A’s looks downright frisky. Last year, playing them was basically a bye series; this year, they’ve almost matched their win total from ’23 and we’re in early August. How’d they do it? In one word, variance. In many words, well, read on and find out.
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This probably isn’t a problem for most people, but I’m plagued constantly by the memory of frustrating baseball arguments from days past. I probably get into these arguments more than most people, partially because of my (and I hope it doesn’t sound immodest to say this) vast knowledge of the sport, but mostly because I’ve lived most of my life in New Jersey, which his home to the most stubborn, tendentious people you’d ever have the misfortune of meeting.

One such argument took place probably close to 15 years ago, when I ruined what was supposed to be a relaxing Friday evening down the shore by getting into a shouting match over the issue of Alex Rodriguez vs. Derek Jeter. I preferred A-Rod, who would go on to finish his career with a slugging percentage more than 100 points higher than that of his Yankees teammate. I was arguing against someone whose case rested on Jeter being “more clutch.”

If you’re old enough to remember what “analytics bloggers” like me thought about that argument in the 2010s, you can understand my quickness to anger and probably imagine the colors my face turned. When the dust settled, Jeter — who, it turns out, was actually an exceptional hitter all along — did finish with a better career postseason wRC+ than A-Rod. But it was close: 121 to Jeter, 116 for Rodriguez. Read the rest of this entry »

With Spencer Strider and Ronald Acuña Jr. both out for the season, the Braves haven’t been anywhere close to full strength for awhile, and the injury bug has continued to bite, with Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies sidelined for extended periods as well. In a dispiriting sequence involving the rotation, Max Fried returned from the injured list on Sunday (and was roughed up), then Reynaldo López landed on the IL. With so many absences, the cracks are beginning to show. Where the Braves occupied the top National League Wild Card spot for a good long time, they entered Tuesday having fallen into a three-way tie with the Diamondbacks and Padres.

The not-so-well-kept secret about the Braves is that since finishing April with a 19-9 record, they’ve gone just 41-42, and haven’t been more than a game over .500 in any calendar month. They went 13-14 in May, 14-13 in June, and 12-13 in July; so far, they’re 2-2 in August. Here’s how they now sit via the standings and our Playoff Odds:

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The 2024 season started absolutely terribly for the White Sox. After 25 games, the team’s record stood at 3-22, thanks in large part to an anemic offense that barely scored two runs per game. At the time – the Sox were 3-21 when I wrote the piece – I posed the question of whether the White Sox had a real shot at losing 120 games. I concluded that it was possible, with ZiPS projecting an 8.1% chance that Chicago would lose 120 games, better odds than even the Oakland A’s during their brutal 2023 season. That appeared to be the end of the story, at least until July.

After the awful start, things got slightly sunnier for the Sox for awhile. They swept the Tampa Bay Rays, a team expected to be a contender, and over the next not-so-nice 69 games, they went 24-45. While a .348 winning percentage isn’t in the same zip code as competence, that’s a 56-win pace, a level of lousiness that is fairly commonplace for the worst teams in the league, not the stuff of legend. But as the trade deadline approached, things again turned grim.

The White Sox won the first game of a doubleheader against the Twins on July 10, improving their record to 27-67. That date, almost a month ago, was the last time the White Sox won a game. The team’s 21 straight losses ties them with the 1988 Orioles for the second-most consecutive losses in modern baseball history (since 1901), just two losses behind the biggest loser, the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies. In some sense, the current one might be the most impressive losing streak, simply because the differences between the best and worst teams in baseball has shrunk over the years, making streaks like this more challenging to achieve.

And no, the White Sox haven’t been unlucky. Using a modified Pythagorean winning percentage (I use 1.83 for the exponent rather than two, as it’s been slightly more accurate historically), the White Sox have been the fourth-worst team since 1901.

If the season ended today, the White Sox would have the worst modified Pythagorean win percentage in more than 80 years, since the Philadelphia Phils in 1942. No, that’s not a typo; the Phillies officially shortened their team name for a season in 1942, apparently because they decided they didn’t want to have the same name as the line of cigars.

Problem is, the season doesn’t end today, so the Sox haven’t closed the deal yet. Regression toward the mean is a real thing, and one of the primary reasons why people overrate teams when things are going very well, and vice-versa. At the end of the day, a .235 winning percentage or the .272 in modified Pythag are likely – though not guaranteed – to go up over the remaining games. Projections represent a more stable description of a team’s ability, as well as one that’s generally more predictive of the future, and even with the diminished post-deadline roster, ZiPS sees the White Sox as “only” a .355 team, a 58-104 pace that represents merely a ho-hum level of awfulness.

But it’s also likely that given more games, these other terrible teams likely would have played better ball as well, for similar reasons. (Remember, Major League Baseball didn’t implement the current 162-game schedule until 1961.) While ZiPS projections date back to 2005, I have a quick little estimator for a team’s underlying ability that correlates fairly well with projections; it’s a mix of actual record, a team’s “wRC Pythagorean” — which uses wRC rather than runs score and allowed — and a model of regression toward .500. So I calculated the worst teams by this method and compared them to Chicago’s .356 estimate.

Whew, the White Sox once again fall to satisfyingly hurlicious levels as the worst team since the 1952 Pirates. And the thing is that for the Sox, a .355 record is lousy enough that they stand an excellent chance at losing 120 games anyway with the number of losses they already have banked. With 47 games to play, a .355 record would net them only 16.7 wins, leaving them at just under a 44-118 record, tantalizingly close to the 1962 Mets standard. And since we know that projections aren’t perfect, or at least maybe reality isn’t, that gives the White Sox ample room to continue to underperform and take the grand prize. Luckily, ZiPS can take care of that estimate.

Even with things projected not to go quite as badly, ZiPS gives the White Sox a slightly better than one-in-three chance (34%) to lose 120 games. And it could get even worse, with a 1% projected shot of finishing with a 35-127 record (or worse). That is championship brutality right there. The amusing thing is that this probability could’ve been even higher, but the White Sox didn’t trade Garrett Crochet or Luis Robert Jr. at the deadline, leaving the team encumbered with an additional 2-3 wins. If I remove Crochet and Robert Jr. in favor of their likely sub-replacement replacements, ZiPS projects the Pale Hose to have a 66% chance of losing at least 120 games!

I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call it a silver lining, but hope remains even for the most woeful teams in baseball. The last team to make a serious late run at 120 losses, the 2003 Tigers, improved quickly in the following seasons and made it to the World Series just three years later. Those 1952 Pirates were in the middle of a full rebuild helmed by legendary general manager Branch Rickey, hired in ’51, and though health problems forced him to step down in ’55, the organization assembled many of the key players who were on the World Series-winning team in ’60. And let’s not forget that seven years after losing 120 games, the Mets won the 1969 World Series. White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf isn’t one to embrace change, but a disaster of epic proportions could, in theory, be the one thing that would prompt him to overhaul the organization. I wouldn’t say I’m terribly optimistic about this actually happening, but with an improved farm system – we now rank Chicago’s farm as the third best in baseball – and maybe a better front office assembled, the Sox could turn things around.

Whether the White Sox have a brighter future is something we’ll have to wait to find out. For now, enjoy these Sox as they reach new levels of ineptitude, because they may be the worst major league team you’ll ever see.

The smooth, lefty stroke has aged like fine wine through baseball history. Ben Rice is one of the latest examples of a left-handed hitter whose swing alone makes him fun to watch. Moving through the Yankees’ system as a bat-first catcher, Rice’s explosive minor league performance the last year forced his name into the big league conversation when first baseman Anthony Rizzo landed on the injured list with a fractured arm.

Even before Rizzo went down, Rice was mixing in more time at first base at Triple-A this season. That’s where the organizational need was, and his skills were not quite suited long-term at catcher anyway. As you’d expect, his defense at his new position has been a work in progress, and the same is true for the rest of his game. At the plate, Rice is experiencing the same ups and downs that most rookies do: Pitchers are figuring out how best to attack him, and he is learning how to make adjustments at the big league level.

With a 102 wRC+ over 142 plate appearances, Rice has been formidable thus far, but much of that is due to his hot streak that came along with his call-up. Across his first 19 games, he slashed .267/.348/.567 with five home runs, including the three against the Red Sox on July 6, and a 154 wRC+ over 69 plate appearances. During his 18 games (73 PA) since then, he’s batting .143/.247/.283 with two homers and a 53 wRC+. Despite that recent skid, ZiPS still believes in Rice, giving him a projected 110 wRC+ for the rest of the season. No projections come without uncertainty, of course, but there is a reason why ZiPS – and other projection systems – are confident the under-the-radar prospect can continue to be above average at the plate. Let’s get into it. Read the rest of this entry »

The Arizona Diamondbacks came through this weekend having won eight of their past 10 games, and after a bumpy start to the season, the Snakes are suddenly one of the most dangerous teams in the National League bracket. They hold a playoff spot even though their franchise player, Corbin Carroll, has hit like Eric Bruntlett this season, and despite having gotten nothing from the 2-3-4 slots in a rotation that was supposed to be a strength. Literally nothing in the case of Eduardo Rodriguez, who makes his season debut today.

So I was a little surprised when I went on Ketel Marte’s page and saw that we hadn’t written a standalone article about him on the main FanGraphs site this season. That’s our bad. Let me make up for it. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday, Davy Andrews put Aaron Judge into context. That’s fun for the usual reasons – “Wow, look how dominant Aaron Judge is!” never gets old. But his final conclusion – Judge hits like most batters do when opponents hang a bad slider middle-middle – got me thinking. We have a pitch-level model that estimates the worst pitches. Can we use it to get an idea of what it looks like to throw a pitch so bad it turns your opponents into Judge-esque offensive producers?

There’s an easy way to sort this out. When you look at a pitcher’s player page here at FanGraphs, you can see how we model each pitch. There are a ton of scores, but I’m going to be focusing on PitchingBot today, for reasons I’ll explain shortly. The player pages break each pitch down by command and stuff. In our internal database, it’s even better: You can look at any individual pitch and get a grade on it. I set out to find the worst pitches on the year to see whether they made hitters look invincible.

Ironically, the worst pitch thrown this year made the batter look extremely vincible. Here it is in all its glory:

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