On Sunday afternoon, a friend of mine was straight up not having a good time watching his favorite baseball team. The Phillies, defending NL champions and consensus favorites to return to the playoffs this year, were losing to the Rockies. They’d already done that once this weekend and are heading into the last week of April under .500. So he came up with an interesting theory: With so many players leaving Phillies camp to play in the World Baseball Classic, perhaps the interruption in spring training had a deleterious effect on the team’s preparation and/or chemistry.

Then he asked me if I knew of anyone who’d studied the issue. I said no and almost let the matter drop right there. Looking at the statistical leaderboards, playing in the WBC didn’t throw Shohei Ohtani off his schwerve. (Or Ronald Acuña Jr., or Randy Arozarena, or Xander Bogaerts)

Most of all, there are more direct explanations for the Phillies’ slow start: Bryce Harper is hurt, they’re down to something like their fourth-string first baseman, and there’s a specific Phillies fan who’s done something to anger the baseball gods and call down their wrath. His name is Nick, he lives in Christiana, Delaware, and the baseball gods will not relent until he is found and sacrificed upon a stone altar. Hurry, there’s no time to lose. Read the rest of this entry »

Mark Gubicza was a good starting pitcher. Making all but two of his 384 big-league appearances with the Kansas City Royals, the big right-hander logged 132 wins to go with a 3.96 ERA, 42 complete games, and 16 shutouts. His best season came in 1988 when he went 20-8 with a 2.70 ERA and finished third in A.L. Cy Young balloting.

Gubicza also had two saves, both of them in 1993. That was the year he gained a true appreciation for how challenging it is to protect a late-inning lead for a teammate. How he came work out of the bullpen — something he did sparingly outside of that one season — was a matter of circumstance.

“We didn’t have a bridge to get from our starters to Jeff Montgomery,” explained Gubicza, who now serves as a TV analyst for the Angels. “The year before, my shoulder was a little sketchy, so [manager] Hal McRae asked me if I could be the bridge. At first I was hesitant, because I liked starting. But I was building back my arm strength, so I said, ‘You know what? I’ll do whatever it takes to win games. I’ll be that bridge to get to Jeff Montgomery.”

The transition was initially bumpy. Gubicza’s heart would start racing when the bullpen phone rang, and once he began warming, he would be throwing as hard as he could. Moreover, while adrenaline was telling him that he was ready, his stuff wasn’t ready. Much for those reasons, he took his lumps before figuring out what worked for him in the unfamiliar role. Read the rest of this entry »

Depending on your perspective, it’s a very fun time to be a catcher. Admittedly, I may be imparting some personal bias here since my favorite part of catching was always when a runner took off for second base. It’s the one time in a game when the catcher is in the spotlight. Most of your time as a backstop consists of serving your pitcher in whatever way they need, but with the increase in stolen base attempts this year, catchers have consistently found themselves with golden opportunities to show off their throwing skills. Because of this, arm strength and pop time are as important as they’ve been in the last few decades, and some catchers have been early standouts when it comes to controlling the running game.

The importance of throwing out runners, or even limiting attempts, has made a comeback. As we progress through the next few months, we’ll gain a more precise understanding of just how valuable this skill can be in this stolen base environment, but the early season trends indicate that if you can throw out runners at a good rate, you’ll be one of the most valuable defensive players in the league. And there are a few catchers who have stood apart from the rest of the field when it comes to this being a significant part of their overall value so far. I’m going to highlight two of them in this piece. The first is Gabriel Moreno.

Through the first few weeks of play, no player has produced more defensive value than the young catcher in Arizona and much of that is due to his success throwing out runners. In Moreno’s 2022 prospect report, Eric Longenhagen reported that the catcher sat in the 1.95-1.98 pop time range while in the Arizona Fall League. That would have been slightly above the big league average. However, so far this season, he has been excellent, averaging 1.90 seconds according to Baseball Savant. The combination of his pop time and five caught stealing in eight attempts (63%) has provided the D-backs with plenty of fun, but also with the reassurance that their catcher can still provide value despite struggling offensively (he has posted a meager 62 wRC+ in 52 plate appearances). Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not often that a 33-year old player still owed $34 million over two years is designated for assignment, but after a three-inning, seven run performance against the Cardinals on Wednesday that ballooned his ERA to 10.26, the Diamondbacks decided to cut bait on Madison Bumgarner. Things certainly didn’t go the way the D-Backs anticipated after inking him to a five-year, $85 million deal, as he closed out his Arizona tenure with a 5.23 ERA, 5.18 FIP, and 1 WAR in 363 innings.

As a Diamondback, Bumgarner seemed like a shell of his former self, the former Giants ace who was the hero of three separate playoff runs. His numbers went from good to terrible almost overnight, but the writing was on the wall long before he signed with Arizona. After a successful 2016 campaign that ended in his second top-five Cy Young finish, he missed about half of ’17 and ’18 with injuries, one of which was sustained in a dirt bike crash. While his surface-level results in those two seasons held steady with his career norms, his FIP climbed by nearly a full run as he lost much of the strikeout potency that made him so dominant in years past. His fastball, which once sat around 93 mph, lost two ticks and much of its whiff capabilities. The slider/cutter hybrid that he threw with near-equal frequency to the heater also started getting hit harder; batters had an xSLG nearing .500 versus both offerings in his final season as a Giant.

Despite these warning flags, the Diamondbacks still handed him a big contract before the 2020 season, where his performance began to tank. His strikeout rates continued to fall, and the good luck he experienced later in his Giants tenure faded away. It doesn’t help that Bumgarner has been characterized as unwilling to make adjustments even with diminished stuff, instead sticking with his old, clearly ineffective gameplan. In his late-30s, Charlie Morton nearly tripled his curveball usage compared to his early Pittsburgh days and had the best years of his career. Justin Verlander stopped throwing changeups with the Astros and returned to Cy Young form after some middling seasons; his teammate Gerrit Cole started elevating his fastball more, setting strikeout records in the process. Bumgarner, though, stuck with his fastball/cutter diet, despite the fact that in 2022, his four-seamer was the second-worst pitch in baseball, according to Statcast. As hitters adapted to crush his weakened stuff, Bumgarner couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt back, leading to an unceremonious end to his time on the Diamondbacks. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates are off to a surprisingly hot 13–7 start, tied for the fifth-best record in the majors, and they have a burgeoning offense to thank. At the close of play on Thursday, after scoring 37 runs over a four-game stretch, they rank second in the National League with 103 runs scored, are tied for fourth in the majors with 27 home runs, and are third with a .446 team slugging percentage and eighth with a .339 wOBA. They’ve managed to limit strikeouts — they’re seventh among major league teams with a 20.6% strikeout rate – and have improved their walk rate by two percentage points since last year. Pirates pitching has handled their side of business well enough — their 12th-ranked 4.03 ERA represents a significant improvement from 2022 but looks a little cleaner than their 17th-ranked ​​4.30 FIP and 22nd-ranked 4.55 xFIP — but the real bright light has been that offense.

We’re already getting to the appropriate time in this piece to repeat FanGraphs’ April refrain: it’s early. But when looking for answers this early in the season, I like to follow a general rule of thumb: the more granular the data, the better. As Russell Carleton wrote in this 2011 piece, “The way to increase reliability of a measure is to have more observations in the data set.” This early in the season, we can often learn more reliably from statistics that are based on every pitch a hitter sees or every swing he takes — something like swing rate or contact rate — than metrics with at-bats or plate appearances in the denominator. This makes plate discipline and pitch selection a good area to explore looking for answers in April.

In the case of the Pirates, improved pitch selection has been a great triumph so far this year — and it’s not that they’re necessarily being more patient, but more that they’re making better decisions. The team is swinging at 45.5% of offerings this year, down just a tenth of a point from last year, but far more of those swings are targeting pitches in the zone. Pittsburgh ranks second in the majors with a 27.9% chase percentage, an improvement from 31.7% last year. After finishing dead last in 2022 in zone swing percentage at 65.3%, the Pirates are all the way up to sixth this season with a 69.3% rate. The improvements have been nearly universal, but even as their depth has been tested with injuries to Oneil Cruz and Ji-Man Choi, a few picky Pirates are leading the way. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, the internet dealt with countless cases of “Is that really who I think it is?” as Twitter removed verification checkmarks for unpaid users. Yet when baseball fans did a double-take, it wasn’t because of a spam account that looked suspiciously like Jeff Passan or Ken Rosenthal. Instead, it was because of a shortstop who looked suspiciously like Mookie Betts.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts teased fans earlier this week, revealing that Betts could play shortstop on Wednesday. Instead, it was Luke Williams who took to the field at game time. Fans got their hopes up for Betts the following day, but once again, it was Williams on the lineup card. Indeed, it wasn’t until the seventh inning of yesterday’s ballgame that Roberts finally made good on his word; he pinch-hit for Williams with Betts, and Betts would stay in the game at shortstop. Williams may have earned the nickname Captain America for his performance with the US Olympic baseball team, but Betts was the superhero – or should I say super-utility player – everyone wanted to see. Read the rest of this entry »

Pablo López is off to a good start in his first season with the Twins. Acquired by Minnesota from Miami as the centerpiece of an offseason deal that sent defending American League batting champion Luis Arraez to the Marlins, the 27-year-old right-hander has a 1.73 ERA and a 2.70 FIP over 26 innings. Moreover, he’s fanned 33 while surrendering just 15 hits and issuing six walks.

Trading in his cutter for a sweeper has played a part in that success. López has thrown his new offering 82 times — all against same-sided hitters — over four starts, and only twice has the result been a base hit. His Whiff% on the pitch is an eye-opening 50%.

The repertoire tweak was made at the behest of López’s new team, but the idea of a sweeper preceded his arrival.

“I first got the concept at Driveline in the offseason,” explained López, who logged a 3.75 ERA in a career-high 180 innings last year with Miami. “But I was only there for a short visit, so I couldn’t really capitalize on the concept of it. Then, in spring training, it was brought up again. From there we sat down and worked on it.” Read the rest of this entry »

There are a lot of reasons why the Astros are off to a cold start in 2023 and, as of Thursday morning, are looking up at the Angels and Rangers in the AL West standings. While their Pythagorean record suggests they’ve actually played better than their record, their April offense has been an extremely unbalanced one. To a large extent, the AL’s fifth-place team in runs scored has been driven primarily by Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker.

The Astros currently have three positions with an OPS under .600 for the season: catcher, first base, and designated hitter. Catcher as an offense sink was always expected; nobody had a secret belief that Martín Maldonado had offensive performance as part of his skill set. Designated hitter should improve once it has a smaller dose of David Hensley and Corey Julks at the position. That leaves first base, the home of José Abreu, the longtime White Sox slugger who was Houston’s biggest signing this winter. He has struggled in the first eighth of the season, hitting .266, but with so little secondary contribution that his OPS stands at a miserable .605. Given his age, three-year deal, and the necessity to get at least some offensive contribution from first base, how worried should the Astros be about him?

The general belief, at least among Astros fans, is that Abreu has historically been a slow starter, and that any issue will take care of itself, but I think that’s too easy a “solution” to his early-season struggles. First off, the supposition that he has historically been a worse hitter in April is factually 100% accurate. Among players in the wild-card era, he has one of the largest splits between April and rest-of-season OPS (OPS is certainly good enough for an examination such as this). Since the start of the 1995 season, there are 300 players who have accumulated at least 750 plate appearances in April; Abreu’s career split — 90 points of OPS — is large enough to make the top 20 and, unless I’m miscounting, enough to rank him third among active players:

Offense is generally lowest in April, so some kind of shortfall is not unexpected. The 300 players in this class, as a group, had a .794 OPS in April and an .806 OPS the rest of the year. With a quarter of a million April plate appearances between them and a total of nearly two million plate appearances, a 12-point OPS is a significant one, and Abreu’s history dwarfs this one.

So, he’s a bad player in April, and everything will just work outself out? Not so fast. Read the rest of this entry »

Hunter Greene left his most recent start after taking a comebacker off his right shin, but the 23-year-old righty appears set to stick around Cincinnati for awhile. Per ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the fireballer agreed to a six-year, $53 million extension (2023-28) with a seventh-year club option. Remarkably, amid the Reds’ teardown, this deal makes him the roster’s first player with a guaranteed salary for next season.

Via MLB Trade Rumors, this is the second-largest extension for a pitcher with between one and two years of service time, after Spencer Strider’s six-year, $75 million deal with the Braves. Strider sold high, so to speak, signing that contract coming off a 202-strikeout, 1.83-FIP season in which he was runner-up to teammate Michael Harris II in the NL Rookie of the Year voting. Greene, who’s less of a finished product, didn’t have quite that kind of platform.

Chosen with the second pick of the 2017 draft out of Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, California — at a point when he was still a two-way player — Greene quickly shifted his focus to pitching and found early success in the minors. He earned a spot in the 2018 Futures Game, but not long afterwards sprained his UCL and lost a season and a half to Tommy John surgery. When he debuted in the majors on April 10, 2022, he had just 186 minor league innings under his belt, which is to say that he was still rather raw. Particularly considering he was on a team that lost 100 games, and that he was hit hard early in the year, he acquitted himself well, posting a 4.44 ERA and 4.37 FIP in 125.2 innings. Read the rest of this entry »

I might as well throw out all the usual caveats up front. It’s April. Sample sizes are still miniscule. The ball might be different. The rules are definitely different. I could go on. All of that is true, but it doesn’t change this essential fact: José Alvarado is on an otherworldly tear right now, putting up best-reliever-in-baseball numbers for a Phillies team that desperately needs the help.

Let’s start with the numbers, because they’re overwhelming. Alvarado has faced 29 batters so far this year. He’s struck out 18 of them. That’s a 62.1% strikeout rate, or as I like to call it, a made up strikeout rate. You can’t conceive of a 62.1% strikeout rate. It’s nonsense math. Nearly two-thirds of the batters who have come to the plate against Alvarado this year have walked back to the dugout with nothing to show for it but a sad face.

As you can no doubt imagine, you need to miss a lot of bats to put up strikeout numbers like that. Alvarado has posted a 20.8% swinging strike rate so far this season, seventh-best among relievers even in the small sample of April, when outliers rule. That’s a career high for him, obviously, but not by as much as you’d think: He posted a delectable 16.7% mark for all of 2022. Read the rest of this entry »