Sonny Gray has been one of baseball’s best pitchers so far this season. Over five starts, the Minnesota Twins right-hander has fanned 34 batters and allowed just 20 hits and two runs in 29 innings. His ERA is a Lilliputian 0.62.

Gray is no flash in the pan. Now 33 years old and in his 11th big league season, the Vanderbilt University product is a two-time All-Star with a 3.50 ERA and a 3.54 FIP over 252 career appearances, all but nine as a starter. Originally with the Oakland Athletics, he subsequently pitched for the New York Yankees and the Cincinnati Reds before coming to the Twins Cities prior to last season.

How as the veteran hurler evolved over the years? Gray addressed that question when the Twins visited Fenway Park last week.

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David Laurila: How have you evolved as a pitcher? Outside of being older, are you basically the same guy that broke into the big leagues in 2013?

Sonny Gray: “I would say no. As far as pitch types, I still throw the same curveball, that hasn’t changed, but everything else has kind of evolved and adapted.

“For the first four to five years, it was kind of, ‘Go out there and do it.’ At the time, 95–96 [mph] was a lot of velo, and you could just beat guys with that. If you had any type of breaking pitch, all the better. So for those first four to five years, it was kind of just that. I threw a two-seam and a four-seam and then a curveball.

“Everyone would say that one of the reasons my fastball was so hard to hit is that they didn’t know which way it was going to go. My four-seam tended to cut a little bit, and the two-seam would go the other way. Then I got traded to New York [in July 2017]. That was the first time I tried to change a little bit. I’d always lived down and away, bottom of the zone, and now I was hearing, ‘Hey, throw your four-seam at the top of the zone.’ That was a little foreign to me. I tried it, I did some things, and didn’t have immediate success with it.

“That’s the first time I was adapting. It was the first era of the spin stuff. It was new to everyone back then, and we were figuring out that spinning four-seams were good [pitches]. I don’t think everyone had it together that everyone’s four-seam is different. At the time, it was just ‘Spinning four-seams at the top are great.” My four-seam tends to cut a little bit, it doesn’t have that [ride], so while I had some success, overall it didn’t go well.” Read the rest of this entry »

Logan O’Hoppe has been one of the bright spots of the Angels’ up-and-down season, but unfortunately, the 23-year-old rookie catcher may have played his last game in 2023. On Sunday, the team revealed that O’Hoppe will need surgery to repair the torn labrum in his left shoulder, an injury that is expected to sideline him for four to six months.

The 23-year-old backstop first injured the shoulder while swinging the bat last Monday in Boston, but he remained in the game and played the next three as well. “It felt fine after it popped back in, in Boston,” he told reporters on Sunday, describing what sounds like a subluxation, not unlike what Fernando Tatis Jr. frequently experienced before undergoing surgery last September. “I mean, you hit three or four balls over 100 [mph], you think you’re fine,” he added.

Alas, O’Hoppe reaggravated the injury while hitting a single in the ninth inning of Thursday night’s 9–3 loss at Yankee Stadium. He fell down in obvious pain after hitting a hot smash down the third base line, recovered to run to first base on what otherwise would have been a double, then exited for a pinch-runner.

The Angels put O’Hoppe on the injured list on Friday, and by Sunday his season was in jeopardy. Only after he undergoes surgery on Tuesday will the prognosis be more clear, though for the moment he and the Angels have some optimism that a return in late August or September will be possible. Read the rest of this entry »

I
Drew Smyly is seven innings into a perfect game.
He’s thrown nothing but sinkers and curveballs.
It’s a day game at Wrigley and the ball melts into a swirl of white t-shirts,
Materializes in the catcher’s mitt,
Then says hello-goodbye to each of the infielders in turn
As another Dodger slides his bat back into the bat rack.
Drew Smyly is seven innings into a perfect game.
Drew Smyly is about to be tackled by his catcher.

II
Yan Gomes lands and keeps rolling, longer than he needs to,
Eventually settling on his hands and knees, head hanging,
Not remotely like girls who throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
Smyly comes to rest with his weight on his pitching elbow, legs crossed,
Like Reclining Venus in pinstripes. He shakes his head and smiles, “My bad.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Pittsburgh Pirates have been a pleasant surprise so far this season. Far exceeding the low expectations placed upon them by prognosticators, the Bucs boast a 16-7 record, tops in the senior circuit. Their best hitter has likewise been a pleasant surprise. Sixty-six plate appearances into his fourth big league campaign and his first in the Steel City, Connor Joe is slashing a robust (and obviously unsustainable) .357/.455/.643 with 10 extra-base hits and a 194 wRC+. (His .467 wOBA comes with a .384 xWOBA and a .439 BABIP.) Over his last six games — all Pittsburgh wins — the 30-year-old outfielder has gone 9-for-19 with three doubles, a triple, a home run, and a pair of walks.

Joe talked about his evolution as a hitter, including what he learned from former big league slugger Phil Plantier, when the Pirates visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with my favorite icebreaker question: Do you view hitting as more of an art or as more of a science?

Connor Joe: “Oh man. It’s a good mix of both. It’s a combination of everything, right? It’s science, because you need to be educated on what the opponent is trying to do to you. But it’s also not so scientific. It’s more athletic, right? So yeah, it’s a good mixture of a lot of things.” Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite articles from the offseason was Ben Clemens’ piece about Gerrit Cole. It’s a thorough explanation of why and how Cole is still one of the league’s best pitchers, this despite a down year and public perception that several others had surpassed him. Through the first few weeks of the season, we’ve gotten strong reassurance that Cole is indeed still one of the best pitchers in the sport.

Cole has been fantastic through five starts and 34 innings pitched, with a 0.79 ERA, a 2.21 FIP and — get this — zero home runs allowed. That last point is the most important one. Last year, no pitcher in the majors gave up more home runs than Cole (33). It was his kryptonite the entire season. He would be coasting through a game, striking out 29.3% of the batters he faced, and then suddenly a ball would find itself in the seats and his start would blow up in front of him. His longest stretch without giving up a long ball in 2022 was three games, a feat he managed on two separate occasions. But this year, he seems to have turned the corner. The key to Cole’s success during this turnaround has been his fastball. There are a few things contributing to this that tie in with one another, but I’ll start with his four-seam fastball location:

Cole has been excellent in keeping the ball up on his arm side both in and out of the zone. You can see that in the heat maps, but if it helps to know, 32.4% of his four-seam fastballs have been in the upper third of the strike zone, or above and to either side of the upper third. Last year, that mark was only 21.1%, the lowest it has been since before his breakout year in 2018 with Houston. Cole has one of the best four-seam fastballs in terms of velocity and stuff; if he locates the pitch in its ideal spot up in the zone, it’s extremely difficult to hit. The following two pitches are great examples of how hard it is for a hitter to get on top of a precisely located, high-velocity fastball with ride:

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Matt Chapman have been two of the best hitters in baseball this year in terms of both hard contact and results. Both are routinely crushing fastballs. Yet neither was able to get their best swing off due to Cole’s location. Even the best hitters can’t square up Cole when his fastball command is on. That’s perhaps an obvious statement, but it’s necessary to point out. It’s why he broke out with Houston and why he has been one of the most productive pitchers in baseball over the last five seasons. The question, then, is how he returned to having great fastball command. For that, I’ll turn to some information on his release point and extension.

It’s a simple concept. If you want to more precisely target a specific spot in the zone with a pitch you throw half the time, then alter your release point to set yourself up for consistent success. Cole is releasing the ball higher and closer to third base than he ever has in his career, and with the least extension he’s gotten down the mound since his Pittsburgh days. You might be thinking that’s counterintuitive. Typically, a four-seam fastball’s qualities will be the best with more extension and a lower release point, and you’d be right to think so! However, there is some nuance to consider with Cole’s situation.

So far, this is the least amount of induced vertical break (IVB) he has had since joining the Yankees, but a sacrifice in IVB due to an altered release point and decrease in extension has allowed him to have pinpoint command. If you want to learn more about IVB, check out Justin Choi’s incredible piece from last year, but as a quick refresher, it’s essentially the movement that causes a fastball to “rise” relative to a hitter’s expectations. It’s not like Cole’s fastball is suddenly bad — it’s still sitting at 17.6 inches of IVB, a -4.4 degree vertical approach angle (VAA), and 96.8 mph average velocity. The IVB is still well above average. His VAA, the angle at which a pitch enters the zone, is still flat enough to fool hitter’s expectations. And the velo is still top notch! Basically, the sum of the parts still makes for an elite, 99th-percentile pitch, especially when you add the command improvement. The .141 batting average against and -9 run value he’s accrued (-8 last year) prove the sacrifices are paying off.

Cole’s improvements in the top of the zone are having effects elsewhere, too. If I were a hitter facing Cole, I’d be forced to focus my eyes up and nowhere else. You have to pick your spots against a pitcher of this quality. If you don’t hunt the fastball in its most frequent location, you’re going to get beat by it over and over again. Because of that, when Cole does target the bottom of the zone, it’s unexpected — and it’s freezing hitters. He has only thrown 51 total fastballs at or under the bottom third of the zone, but 21 (41.2%) have gone for called strikes. That’s up 10 percentage points from last year and is the highest mark since his 2018 breakout. It doesn’t matter who you are, covering 97 with ride at the top and bottom of the zone is nearly impossible.

Other than the four-seam fastball itself, Cole has made some other tweaks here and there that have contributed to his resurgence. The first is how aggressive he is in 0-0 counts. To put it plainly, he is attacking hitters. The ace has never been within three percentage points of a 70% first-pitch strike rate, but this year, he is at 71.5%. It’s not just from his fastball either; he is using his curve as an 0-0 offering in the zone more frequently than last year. In general, he has continued the uptick in curveball usage that we saw at the end of last year. That’s also in line with Cole’s general willingness to be more adaptable with his pitch usage on a game-to-game basis. This year, he has used his fastball as much as 64.2% of the time and as little as 42.3% of the time. Better command and less predictability keeps hitters honest.

When you’re a great pitcher who hasn’t seen any notable decline in the quality of your stuff, you’re typically a safe bet to regain elite form. At Gerrit Cole’s level of talent, it doesn’t take a dramatic overhaul. A slight adjustment in release point was all he needed to be the top-of-the-zone killer he had been in the previous four seasons. That, along with strategic in-game adjustments, suggests there is no regression coming any time soon.

Let’s start this article with a bold claim: Wander Franco’s first two seasons in the majors were a disappointment. That’s a startling assertion, even if it might not seem that way at first. Franco hit .282/.337/.439, good for a 121 wRC+, while playing league average defense at shortstop; he was 20 years old for the first of those seasons. He played at a 4.3 WAR per 600 PA clip, which the FanGraphs glossary helpfully notes is an All-Star level. That’s all true. For the best prospect of the past decade, though, it still feels like a letdown.

The real thing that has betrayed Franco is playing time. First for nebulous service time reasons, then due to injury, his first two seasons in the majors were both as brief as they were scintillating. He appeared in 70 games in 2021 and 83 in 2022. His counting stats weren’t exactly imposing: 13 homers, 10 steals, and a mere 72 RBI if you’re playing fantasy baseball. I acknowledge that considering that performance a disappointment is grading on a curve, but when you’re as good and hyped as Franco is, that comes with the territory.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time for the good news: that perception is as stale as the sourdough I bought last Wednesday and didn’t finish (hey, there’s a good bagel shop nearby, and I’m only human). Franco isn’t a young up-and-comer this year. He’s a bona fide star, one of the best hitters in baseball so far and the best player on the best team. It’s only a matter of time before your marginally-baseball-following friends start asking you if you’ve heard about this Wander guy. So allow me to present a gift to you as a baseball fan who wants to sound smart to their friends, a guide to why Franco is one of the best players in baseball and what he changed to get there. Read the rest of this entry »

Max Muncy’s career has had its ups and downs in recent years… or steps forwards and backwards, depending upon which plane you prefer for directional metaphors. Lately the slugger has been on a home run binge, one involving a mechanical tweak — a slight step backwards with his left foot at the start of his swing — that he adopted last year and then briefly abandoned this spring.

This weekend, Muncy took over the major league lead in home runs with 11. He went yard four times during the Dodgers’ four-game visit to Wrigley Field from Thursday through Sunday, starting the festivities with a solo shot off starter Javier Assad on Thursday night, adding a pair of late-inning blasts off Mark Leiter Jr. and Brad Boxberger on Saturday (the first of those a two-run homer), and capping his weekend with a two-run drive off Marcus Stroman on Sunday. The last of those gave the Dodgers the lead and helped them take three games out of four from the Cubs.

Muncy’s hot streak didn’t just begin last Thursday; it’s been going on for two weeks. After homering just once while going 4-for-33 in his first nine games, he bookended a three-game series at Oracle Park with a pair of two-homer games, then homered in losing causes in series openers against the Cubs and Mets at Dodger Stadium. Read the rest of this entry »

The St. Louis Cardinals have scuffled in the early going. Even after a win against the Mariners on Sunday, their record stands at a paltry 9-13. Through the weekend, their 2.2-win dip in projected win total has been the sixth-largest decrease since the season began, and among serious contenders, their performance looks even worse: the Cards’ 22.2% decrease in divisional odds has been the league’s largest, bypassing the second-place Yankees (-19.3%), who’ve had to deal with the Rays’ historic start. Further, the Cardinals’ 18.6% drop in playoff odds is second only to the White Sox (-20.1%), who’ve played even worse at 7-15. But what’s plaguing the Redbirds?

We knew that their starting pitching was a weakness coming into the season, and it’s been even worse than advertised. We pegged their starting staff as the 20th-best during our positional power rankings, and they’re 26th in both ERA and WAR, and aren’t much better by FIP (24th), even after a stellar Sunday performance from Jack Flaherty. Though we anticipated his absence at the time, perhaps we underestimated the impact that Adam Wainwright’s early-season injury recovery would have on the staff as a whole. Nevertheless, the Cards’ pitching woes have been within our margin for error. On the other hand, their lack of outfield production has been more surprising.

Going from left to right field, we ranked the Cards 15th, eighth, and ninth in our positional power rankings. Their outfield bats have been solid if unspectacular thus far, with their 104 wRC+ tying for 13th in the league. Yet, their defense has dragged them down: by OAA, UZR, and DRS, they tie for 25th, have sole possession of 26th, and are in a four-way tie for 23rd, respectively. That all adds up to a WAR figure of just 0.3, good (or bad) for 21st in the league. Read the rest of this entry »

Pete Alonso is a specialist. He’s not one of those boring types, though: defensive replacement, pinch-runner, long reliever, LOOGY, the list goes on and on. He’s the kind of specialist that every team would take more of: a home run specialist. You might not notice it, because every star hitter is seemingly also a slugger these days, but Alonso isn’t like the rest of them. He’s out there for the home runs, and everything else about his game simply works in support of that.

That’s a vague statement, but I really think it’s true. To me, there’s no player in baseball today who is a more pure home run hitter. Given that we play in one of the homer-happiest eras in baseball history, and that players today train harder than at any point in the past, he might be the best home run hitter of all time.

Let’s start with a simple fact: since Alonso debuted in 2019, no one has hit more home runs. He’s 13 homers clear of Aaron Judge in second place, with a whopping 156. This isn’t a case of a pile of extra-base hits with some going over the wall, either. Of the top 15 homer hitters in that span, only Judge has a higher proportion of home runs as a share of all extra-base hits. Alonso isn’t up there spraying balls into the gap; he’s up there trying to give fans souvenirs:

Read the rest of this entry »

It was a week of highs and lows as the Rays continued to dominate early this season while the A’s took their first of many steps out of Oakland. Just a reminder that because we’re still so early in the season, we’ll see some pretty wild swings in the rankings below as teams continue to sort themselves out.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share), and their defense (RAA) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. I also add in a factor for “luck,” adjusting a team’s win percentage based on expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

The Rays continued their hot start to the season, winning five of their six games last week; they still haven’t lost a game at home this year. The amount of depth on their roster means that even when their fantastic middle infield duo, Wander Franco and Brandon Lowe, starts to struggle — they collected just six hits between them last week — there’s someone like Harold Ramírez hitting instead (nine hits, two home runs). They’ll face a tough challenge in a surging Astros ballclub this week.

The Rangers vaulted themselves into this top tier by beating up on the Royals and A’s last week. So far, they’ve weathered the loss of Corey Seager to a hamstring injury behind the hot bats of Marcus Semien, Adolis García, and Jonah Heim. They’re also getting plenty of help from their pitching staff. Their rotation is fully healthy; Jacob deGrom had an injury scare on Monday after leaving his start after just four innings with a wrist issue but looked dominant against the A’s. But the biggest surprise has been their bullpen, which has the third-lowest ERA in the majors.

It’s shocking to see three NL Central clubs in this tier but not the Cardinals. The hot starts of the Brewers, Cubs, and Pirates are backed up by the underlying data: All three teams are hitting well, pitching well, and possess a run differential of at least +25. Cody Bellinger exacted some revenge against his former team, blasting two home runs off Dodgers pitching over the weekend, and Drew Smyly came within six outs of throwing a perfect game against Los Angeles on Friday.

While the Cubs and Brewers have looked impressive, the Pirates are turning heads. They swept the Rockies in Colorado and the Reds at home, allowing no more than three runs in any of their seven games last week, and now sit atop the division. Led by David Bednar, their bullpen has been lights out, while their rotation has gotten breakout performances from Mitch Keller and Johan Oviedo. They’ve got a tough schedule ahead with dates against the Dodgers, Rays, and Blue Jays over the next two weeks. We’ll see if they’re up to the challenge.

The Astros seem to have broken out of their funk, winning two of three from the Blue Jays and sweeping the Braves in Atlanta last week. They’re still missing Jose Altuve, Michael Brantley, and Lance McCullers Jr., and José Abreu isn’t hitting for power, but they’ve had unexpected contributions up and down their lineup, like Mauricio Dubón, who is filling in for Altuve at second base admirably with a 108 wRC+ and solid defense. Houston’s next task: slow down the Rays this week.

The Mets just wrapped up a 7–3 West Coast road trip, sweeping the A’s, winning two of three from the Dodgers, and splitting four games with the Giants. Despite that successful California swing, they couldn’t avoid stepping on their own toes. Max Scherzer was ejected from his start on Thursday after violating the sticky stuff prohibitions and accepted his 10-game suspension despite maintaining his innocence, but his absence puts New York in a bit of a precarious position. The rotation is already missing Justin Verlander, Carlos Carrasco, and José Quintana; the team will need to call up someone to take Scherzer’s place for the next two weeks.

There was a fleeting glimpse of what the Angels could be on Sunday afternoon. Losing to the Royals 2–1 entering the sixth inning, Taylor Ward, Mike Trout, and Shohei Ohtani launched back-to-back-to-back home runs to put Los Angeles ahead for good. There’s been very little of that kind of offense for the Angels this year; Trout is crushing the ball like usual, but Ohtani has been much better on the mound than at the plate, and Ward had been mired in a slump. Hunter Renfroe has been very good too, but the rest of the lineup just hasn’t carried its weight, and now it’ll be without Logan O’Hoppe for multiple months after he injured his shoulder.

The Twins locked up the most impressive member of their major league-best starting rotation last Monday, signing Pablo López to a four-year deal. Alongside hot starts from Sonny Gray and Joe Ryan, they have enjoyed some phenomenal performances from their starters. Unfortunately, their offense has yet to start clicking despite a bounce back from Joey Gallo. Carlos Correa is off to a particularly slow start, and Byron Buxton hasn’t tapped into the prodigious power he displayed last year. They did just activate Jorge Polanco off the IL and Alex Kirilloff shouldn’t be far behind. Perhaps those two will provide the spark to build some distance in the AL Central standings.

After allowing seven runs in three innings, ballooning his ERA up to 10.26, the Diamondbacks designated Madison Bumgarner for assignment on Thursday. They’re eating the remaining $34 million owed to him over the next two years, but his deteriorating performance was too harmful to a team that’s looking to turn a corner this year. Arizona was leading the NL West for most of last week until losing three of four to the Padres over the weekend. Zac Gallen, though, is putting together another long scoreless streak, running it to 21.2 innings after his start on Friday night, and the D-Backs have got a number of young pitching prospects in the high minors they could call on to replace Bumgarner.

The Giants have struggled through a rough start to the season despite a decent run differential. A pair of walk-off losses in Detroit were unfortunate, and they’ve only won a single series this year. But they’re getting good performances from players like LaMonte Wade Jr. and Thairo Estrada, and Mitch Haniger, one of their key offseason acquisitions, is close to making his season debut. They also signed Logan Webb to a five-year extension last Friday, a significant vote of confidence in his ability to lead the pitching staff.

The vibes are rough on the South Side of Chicago. The White Sox haven’t won a series this year and were just swept by the Rays over the weekend, including two ugly walk-off losses. Things aren’t going to get any easier either with a trip to Toronto this week before another series against the Rays and then the Twins after that. With Tim Anderson and Yoán Moncada still on the IL, the offense has had trouble getting started, but Chicago’s biggest problem has been a pitching staff that’s allowed the second most runs in the American League.

It feels cruel to continue to highlight the woes of the Athletics in this space, but they’ve played historically bad baseball. To make matters even worse, their ownership group announced that it had signed a binding agreement to purchase land in Las Vegas for a new stadium. There’s still so much up in the air before the franchise packs its bags for the desert, but this is the first concrete step that owner John Fisher and president Dave Kaval have made toward moving the team away from Oakland. It’s a dark time to be an A’s fan.

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