Since breaking into the big leagues back in 2011, Lance Lynn has featured one of the most fastball-heavy approaches in the majors. Now, that’s a little reductive, as he throws three different fastballs that he can ride, cut, or sink depending on what the situation calls for. Still, over 80% of the pitches he’s thrown in his career have been classified as a four-seamer, sinker, or cutter; that’s the third-highest rate of hard stuff thrown by a starter since his debut. And Lynn’s approach has only been amplified in recent seasons. In the last five years, over 85% of his pitches have been fastballs; no other pitcher has crossed the 80% mark.

When Lynn isn’t throwing a heater, he mixes in a curveball and a changeup, though neither pitch has been all that effective during his career. His four-seamer is a devastating pitch up in the zone, and his cutter and sinker allow him to work laterally to either side of the plate if needed. Utilizing all three of his fastballs effectively leaves little room for secondary offerings in his pitch mix. Why change an approach that’s worked for more than a decade?

Baseball is a game of constant adjustments, particularly in the context of the pitcher-batter duel at its center. In December, after announcing he’ll be pitching for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, Lynn gave a fascinating quote about the adjustments he’s had to make in an interview with The Athletic’s James Fegan:

“People get so caught up in ‘Oh, you just throw fastballs.’ If you actually pay attention to the game, there’s speed differentials, there’s bigger breaks or smaller breaks. Part of evolving as a pitcher is giving the hitters different looks. Over time, you’re locking in the things that make you good, and you’ve got to figure out things that are maybe not as good as they can be. Over the last couple of years, Ethan [Katz] and I have been able to really concentrate on grips, different spin axes, and things of that nature that have really helped develop a pitch that comes out of a slot where it gives hitters difficulty.”

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The Colorado Rockies didn’t draft Zac Veen ninth overall in 2020 because of his wheels. They did so because he could bash baseballs. As Eric Longenhagen wrote the following spring, the left-handed-hitting outfielder possessed “the most obvious long-term power projection” among that year’s high school draftees, adding that Veen’s “in-the-box actions are quiet and smooth up until the moment he decides to unleash hell on the baseball.” Longenhagen rated him the organization’s top prospect before he had played his first professional game.

Two seasons into his career, Veen’s still-promising power has been overshadowed by his running game. Through 232 contests, the 6-foot-4 Port Orange, Florida native has left the yard a modest 27 times and swiped an immodest 91 bases. Counting his past-season stint in the Arizona Fall League, those totals are 28 home runs and 107 stolen bases in 253 games.

I asked Veen, who came in at No. 51 on Baseball America’s newly released Top 100 list (our own rankings are forthcoming), about his Eric Young Sr.-like theft numbers prior to an AFL game last October. Was stealing a lot of bases a goal coming into the 2022 season?

“Honestly, it was just something where I learned a lot last year, and I wanted to carry that over to this year,” he told me. “A lot of it is picking the right time to run. Last year I kind of just ran whenever, and this year I really only tried to run when I needed to run.” Read the rest of this entry »

Back in November, left-hander Tyler Anderson signed with the Angels, and Ben Clemens wrote a super interesting piece about the deal. How did Ben make his article so interesting? By cheating. He was already writing a cool article about Anderson, so rather than start from scratch, he just folded the existing article into one about the signing. It was unfair to the rest of us who struggle to keep up with Ben even when he’s not juicing.

What Ben noted is that in 2020, Anderson started throwing his sinker from a lower arm slot against lefties. More recently, he started doing the same with some of his cutters. Dropping down some for his cutters meant that hitters could no longer assume that a low release point meant a sinker was coming, and it also improved the cutter’s performance. In 2022, lefties had a wOBA of .268 and an exit velocity of 79.5 mph against Anderson’s regular cutter. The drop-down cutter was at .124 and 76.3.

Inspired by Anderson’s novel approach, I went looking for pitchers who do the same thing. We’re not just looking for players who drop down some to throw certain pitches; there are too many of those to list. We’re specifically looking for players who dramatically change their arm angle depending on the handedness of the batters they’re facing. Once you weed out position players, who understandably have very inconsistent release points, there are only a few players who fit those parameters. Just six pitchers had a difference of more than three inches between their vertical release points against righties and lefties:

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Daulton Varsho is good in a few very obvious ways. He’s lightning quick, gets great jumps in the outfield, and plays catcher when he’s not in center or right. He swatted 27 homers last year, and his underlying power metrics suggest that he’ll be able to hit 20-30 a season with some regularity. A plus center fielder who also plays catcher and hits for power? That’s a loud-tool kind of player, the sort who hits you over the head with how good they are.

That’s all true, but I’m intrigued by another one of Varsho’s skills. He might be a power hitter, but he’s also a volume bunter. He ended a plate appearance with a bunt 14 times in 2022, 14th-most in baseball. The guys ahead of him on this list are mostly singles hitters; Victor Robles and Geraldo Perdomo led the pack, for example. No one ahead of him on the list hit 20 homers; for someone with his level of pop, he’s a huge bunting enthusiast.

Strangely, he was particularly fond of bunting with the bases empty last year. That runs counter to conventional baseball wisdom, but also to all baseball wisdom. One of the best reasons to bunt is that even a failure can help score runs. If you try to bunt for a single with a man on first, plenty of your failures will still put a runner in scoring position. If you try a bunt and fail with no one on, it’s an out like any other. Read the rest of this entry »

Amid the frantic negotiations of this year’s arbitration deadline on Friday, the Twins and right-hander Chris Paddack agreed to avoid arbitration and then on the only multi-year deal of the day, a three-year, $12.5 million contract through the 2025 season. The deal, which came just hours after Paddack and the Twins settled at $2.4 million for 2023, buys out his final year of arbitration and his first year of free agency for $10.1 million and includes up to $2.5 million in bonuses.

It’s a reasonable arrangement for both sides. Paddack, who turned 27 just a few days prior, underwent his second Tommy John surgery in May and is aiming for an August 2023 return. Tacking on another year of team control in Minnesota gives him security in his effort to get healthy and still lets him reach free agency a couple of months before his 30th birthday. For the Twins, given Paddack’s injury and his struggles in recent seasons, they are buying low on a player with elite control and significant upside. It’s also a modest investment to help shore up a rotation that will feature three starters — Sonny Gray, Tyler Mahle, and Kenta Maeda — on contract years in 2023.

Before his surgery, when Paddack was dealt from San Diego to Minnesota on Opening Day 2022, it wasn’t entirely clear what type of pitcher the Twins were adding. He had excelled as a 23-year-old rookie in 2019, posting a 3.33 ERA, 3.95 FIP, and 4.05 xFIP over 26 starts, striking out 9.79 and walking just 1.98 per nine innings. Relying on a mid-90s fastball with a changeup and curveball as secondary offerings, he ranked in the 73rd percentile in average exit velocity, 81st in hard-hit percentage, and 88th in both walk rate and chase rate as a rookie. He benefited from the second-lowest BABIP among pitchers with 100 innings or more, but he was successfully limiting hard contact. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll level with you: We’re squarely in baseball’s dead period. That’s fine. There are plenty of other sports going on, there’s more to life than sports, the great outdoors beckons, and so on. But this is a baseball website, not a winter activities website or even a football one. I’m actually in Canada on a ski trip as I put the finishing touches on this article, having watched the NFL playoffs this weekend. But I’m not here to talk about that! I’m here to make up a contract extension for one of my favorite players, and you’ll just have to humor me. (Though if you want to banter about skiing, might I suggest my weekly chats?)

That’s right: let’s talk about Harrison Bader, the once exuberantly-coiffed Yankees outfielder. The Bronx Bombers swapped Jordan Montgomery for Bader at the trade deadline last year in a move that neither team’s fanbase was in love with. Both players then turned around and contributed exactly what their team was hoping for – quality innings for Montgomery and lol-how-did-he-catch-that defense for Bader. Now, I think the Yankees should stop thinking of Bader as a two-year commitment and put a ring on it – or at least, a multi-year contract. Read the rest of this entry »

The Red Sox have question marks in center field and at shortstop, and Ceddanne Rafaela could eventually be the answer at either position. Or both. One of Boston’s top prospects, the 22-year-old native of Curaçao profiles as the organization’s best defender on the grass, and he’s nearly as adept on the dirt. Moreover, he can swing the bat. Playing at High-A Greenville and Double-A Portland, Rafaela put up a 134 wRC+ while logging 32 doubles, 10 triples, and 21 home runs.

How soon he is deemed big-league-ready is a question that looms every bit as large as that of his primary position going forward. Rafaela is coming off of a season where he played 92 games in center, versus just 21 at short, but opportunity is knocking far louder at the latter. With Xander Bogaerts leaving for San Diego and Trevor Story going under the knife, Boston has a huge void to fill. Enrique Hernández could fit the bill, but he’s better suited for second base or center field.

What does the bad news the Red Sox received on Story earlier this week mean for Rafaela’s near-term future? I asked that question to Chaim Bloom.

“I think we would ill-served by sidetracking proper development for him in response to this,” Boston’s Chief Baseball Officer replied. “He’s a really exciting player, and we’re excited for him to impact us, but there is still development left.”

Following up, I asked the under-fire executive if the plan is for Rafaela to continue to play both positions. Read the rest of this entry »

After a promising end to their 2021 season, the Detroit Tigers made a few big splashes in free agency to support a wave of young prospects on the verge of making their big league debuts. Instead of continuing to build on that momentum, however, Detroit took a huge step backwards last year, losing 96 games while scoring the fewest runs in the majors. Their new additions, Javier Báez and Eduardo Rodriguez, combined for just 2.6 WAR, and their top position player prospects, Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, had rough introductions to the big leagues. This cyclone of disappointment led to the dismissal of long-time general manager Al Avila and a bevy of questions about the direction of the franchise.

There are plenty of problems new president of baseball operations Scott Harris needs to address on the roster and in the organization. The early-career struggles and future development of Torkelson and Greene loom the largest, however. As prospects, those two were seen as can’t-miss, heart-of-the-order bats who would form the core of the next great Tigers lineup. Instead, their disappointing rookie seasons were a significant contributor to that league-worst offense in 2022.

Torkelson and Greene are both under 24 years old and will have plenty of opportunities to develop into the kind of contributors that reflect their status as former top prospects. Still, it would behoove Detroit to give them every advantage to succeed in the big leagues, leaving no stone unturned. To that end, the Tigers announced on Wednesday that they would be making some adjustments to the dimensions of Comerica Park ahead of Opening Day:

We’re adjusting @ComericaPark’s outfield dimensions and lowering wall heights in key areas prior to Opening Day 2023.

— Detroit Tigers (@tigers) January 11, 2023

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If you’re like me, you’ve spent a lot of time this offseason clicking around on RosterResource’s excellent Free Agent Tracker. Or perhaps not. Perhaps you have friends and family to attend to, or hobbies, or a rich inner life. Good for you. Don’t rub it in.

If you sort the unsigned players either by 2022 WAR or ’23 projected WAR, the same name comes up: Elvis Andrus. You remember him — that guy from the Rangers in the early 2010s. You’re probably aware he’s still kicking around, and also that he was quite good in 2022. And yet he remains without a job for 2023. Curious.

Andrus was part of the last generation of star shortstops who benefited from the Ozzie Smith scouting corona: If a shortstop was fast, hit for a high average, and played defense with skill and joie de vivre, he must be Ozzie Smith. Then the likes of Carlos Correa came along and now shortstops look like 3-4 outside linebackers. Read the rest of this entry »

Bo Bichette burst onto the scene in 2021, proving to be every bit the star he looked like as a prospect. His bat was dynamic, and he hit for both power and average. His defense at shortstop was passable, which was all anyone could have hoped for. He was durable, too, ranking among the league leaders in both plate appearances and defensive innings. Yet despite all that, the most exciting aspect of his game wasn’t his bat, or his glove, or his resilience; I’d argue it was his baserunning.

According to BsR, the comprehensive baserunning metric we use here at FanGraphs, the young phenom was electric on the bases. He finished with the seventh-highest BsR in baseball, ahead of names like José Ramírez, Myles Straw, and Trea Turner. Meanwhile, he ranked just 37th among qualified players in wRAA and 72nd in OAA. In other words, his value on the bases was where Bichette stood out most from the rest of the league. The metrics from other sources support this point — Baseball Reference had Bichette tied for 11th in baserunning, while Baseball Prospectus had him at 16th. Only six other players ranked among the top 20 on all three sites: Read the rest of this entry »