On the very first pitch of his start against the Phillies on July 22, Justin Steele threw a four-seam fastball. Kyle Schwarber promptly launched the pitch into the right field stands. It was the first home run Steele had allowed off the pitch this year, preventing him from getting any closer to the historic mark Alex Fast had tweeted about just hours earlier. Schwarber aside, the fact that Steele had made it through 17 starts without allowing a home run off his four-seamer was an impressive feat, and it’s a big reason he’s been one of the Cubs’ best starters this year. Read the rest of this entry »
When the Mets signed Adam Ottavino to a one-year, $4 million deal this past offseason, you could imagine how the move might work out for them – or not. To an optimist, Ottavino seemed like a low-risk gamble with prominent upside. To a pessimist, he seemed more like an aging pitcher in decline, especially after a mediocre stint in Boston. But you’d be lying if you said you predicted Ottavino would put up the second-lowest ERA (2.13) and FIP (3.07) of his career at age 36. You could describe the Mets as having caught lightning in a bottle, but that would be an affront to the effort Ottavino has put into sharpening his game, a feat not many players his age manage.
Let’s start with what hasn’t changed. Ottavino’s signature pitch, a flying saucer of a slider that abducts the souls of hitters, is still moving like it used to. There haven’t been any improvements made to it, because stuff-wise, it’s a near-perfect pitch, with Ottavino having pushed the envelope years ago. His two fastballs – a four-seamer and sinker – also haven’t regressed in terms of movement, and though the velocities on both are down, Ottavino’s success has never really been tied with how hard he throws. What matters is that he’s maintained enough velocity: At 94.9 mph, Ottavino’s four-seam fastball is a smidge above league average. In sum, his late-career turnaround hasn’t been because of an uptick in raw stuff. The major ingredients for an outstanding Ottavino outing remain the same.
How about pitch mix? I’m afraid you won’t find a satisfying answer here, either. Compared to last season, Ottavino is throwing his sinker more, and his slider and four-seamer less, but none of those alterations have been dramatic. They certainly could be contributing to Ottavino’s resurgence, but they don’t seem like the sole reason. This season, Ottavino has reintroduced his changeup, presumably to give him a backup plan against left-handed hitters. But given a usage rate of 7%, it’s not as if he’s been relying on the slow ball. And regardless, lefties are faring well against Ottavino, just like they always have. It would make for an appealing narrative, but in truth, the changeup hasn’t been much of a difference-maker. Read the rest of this entry »
Michael Harris II is one of the best young talents in the game. Signed to a $72 million extension last week (this less than three months after making his major-league debut with the Atlanta Braves), the 21-year-old outfielder is one of the National League’s leading Rookie of the Year candidates and has the potential to become a perennial All-Star. Seventy-nine games into his big-league career, Harris is slashing .286/.331/.504 with 13 home runs and a 129 wRC+. Moreover, he’s swiped 15 bases in as many attempts.
And he might have been a pitcher. Prior to being selected in the third round of the 2019 draft out of Stockbridge High School, Harris was considered one of the top left-handed talents in the state of Georgia, and more than a few scouts saw his future on the mound. As for whether he might have followed in the footsteps of other sports luminaries, the former multi-sport athlete has confidence in his abilities, but is happy to be an outfielder.
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David Laurila: You’re obviously still young. Do you feel that you’ve come around to fully understanding who you are as a player?
Michael Harris II: “I think so. I’d say I’m more so an all-around hitter than I am a power hitter or a contact hitter. I can pretty much do anything, I guess. It’s all parts of the field, and I have power while I’m doing it. I’m able to find ways to sneak in some hits when I need to. Different things like that.” Read the rest of this entry »
We all know what teams value most in their batters today: hard, elevated contact. It’s easy to understand why. Pitchers are getting so good at missing bats, and defenders are getting so good at converting balls in play into outs, that making the most out of your contact is imperative.
There are other ways to make the most of your contact, though. You don’t need to hit the ball hard if you hit it on a line. Low line drives are valuable whether they’re hit hard or not; a 92 mph line drive and a 105 mph screamer that both clear the infield are each clean hits every time. Sure, the harder one might split the outfielders and turn into a double more often, but the difference there is marginal. Hit the ball at the proper angle, and you can mitigate any weakness in contact quality.
If you look at the way teams construct their rosters, it might seem like they’re ignoring this fact. Does everyone just hate the Ichiro Suzukis of the world these days? Maybe there’s untapped potential in minor leaguers who generate their contact in ways that don’t jibe with the analytical trends of the day. Heck, maybe there’s untapped potential in major leaguers who do it. Read the rest of this entry »
After having arguably the best season of his professional career in 2021, Carlos Rodón signed a rather modest two-year, $44 million contract with the San Francisco Giants. For a large part of the 2021 season, it looked like he was headed toward a much more headline-grabbing dollar amount. After years of missed time, first due to shoulder problems and then a Tommy John surgery, Rodón shocked the baseball world by returning with a much hotter fastball than he’d previously ever had. Never reaching the heights the White Sox expected when they took him with the third overall pick of the 2014 draft, he was bordering on bust status before suddenly re-emerging as an All-Star. Literally — he made his first All-Star team in 2021.
But a few nasty surprises kept Rodón from getting the payday aces typically get. Given his injury record — he’d only been healthy enough to qualify for an ERA title once — there were inevitable concerns about his durability, an important consideration when you’re doling out nine-figure contracts. Those fears were realized in the second half of the season, as Rodón missed time due to shoulder fatigue and soreness. It wasn’t that he struggled; most teams would have been overjoyed with his 3.26 second-half FIP. What was highly concerning was the dramatic velocity loss he experienced, an extremely inauspicious sign for a pitcher: Read the rest of this entry »
As the Mets have battled to maintain their spot atop the National League East, Francisco Lindor has led the way. After inaugurating his time in New York with a career-worst season with the bat last year, the 28-year-old shortstop has kicked off the start of his 10-year, $341 million contract with a campaign worthy of a spot in MVP discussions.
Lindor had the chance to play the hero on Tuesday night in the Bronx. For as well as Frankie Montas and Clarke Schmidt pitched in the Subway Series finale, the game could have easily swung the other direction at the end. Trailing 4-2 and down to their final out, the Mets loaded the bases against Schmidt, who had already completed three strong innings of relief. Up came Lindor, who over his previous eight games had collected 13 hits (a 263-hit pace!) but on this night had merely walked twice (on a total of 15 pitches) in four plate appearances. Read the rest of this entry »
Max Muncy has been doing lot of experimenting this season. That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Drafted 25th overall last year by the Oakland Athletics out of Thousand Oaks High School in California, Muncy came into the current campaign with all of 11 professional games under his belt. At the tender age of 20 — today is his birthday — it’s understandable that he’s still trying to forge an identity at the plate.
Power could end up being his calling card. A 6-foot-1, 185-pound shortstop who projects to fill out further, Muncy has 19 home runs on the season, 16 at Low-A Stockton and three at High-A Lansing. Making contact has been an issue. Facing pitchers who are almost exclusively older than him, he has fanned 146 times in 483 plate appearances while putting up a .229/.338/.441 slash line and a 104 wRC+.
David Laurila: Let’s start with a question I sometimes ask young players: Give me a self-scouting report.
Max Muncy: “That’s probably different for me, just because I kind of know what’s in the making. But the power is showing up a lot this year. I think I’ll hit for average, for sure, but what I’m going through right now is a learning curve.” Read the rest of this entry »
NEW YORK — More than three weeks after the Yankees made him their top trade deadline acquisition — and a night after the pitcher he replaced, Jordan Montgomery, spun a one-hit shutout to further an impressive opening run with the Cardinals — Frankie Montas was able to show the Bronx a representative version of his capabilities. Facing the Mets in front of a Yankee Stadium season high of 49,217 boisterous fans, the 29-year-old righty survived a rocky first inning, got strong support on both sides of the ball (save for one glitch), and moved Pete Alonso to bat-breaking frustration in what turned out to be a 4-2 Yankees win, giving the team its first series victory in August and salvaging a split of the season’s four-game Subway Series.
Montas allowed two runs in 5.2 innings, scattering six hits and a walk while striking out six — his highest total since his seven-strikeout effort at Yankee Stadium on June 28 while pitching for the A’s. His 15 called strikes was his highest total since that outing, and his 27% CSW (which included 10 swinging strikes) matched his season rate, heralding a return to form following a rough stretch of nearly eight weeks, during which shoulder inflammation, the trade, a trip to the bereavement list and poor performance limited him to a 5.90 ERA and 5.08 FIP in seven starts totaling just 29 innings.
“Packed house in the Bronx, [his] first Subway Series, he went out there and did his thing,” marveled Aaron Judge afterwards. “Working all his pitches, kind of similar to [Domingo] Germán… Backdoor cutter and backdoor slider to some of those lefties early on to kind of steal a strike, and then he got to that sinker-splitter combo. It’s pretty tough to tell the difference between both of those.”
“He showed some bulldog,” added Judge, whose fourth-inning solo homer — number 48 for the season and his second in as many nights — off Taijuan Walker kicked off the scoring. Judge also capped off a go-ahead two-run rally in the seventh by plating the Yankees’ final run via a single off Joely Rodríguez. Read the rest of this entry »
Peter Strzelecki is a success story who also strives to be a role model. Signed by the Milwaukee Brewers as an amateur free agent after being bypassed in the 2018 draft, the right-hander out of the University of South Florida is now thriving as a 27-year-old rookie. Since making his big-league debut on June 2, Strzelecki has come out of the Brewers bullpen 13 times and allowed five earned runs over 16 innings. Quietly effective, he’s surrendered 15 hits, issued seven free passes, and fanned 20 batters.
Strzelecki discussed the repertoire and mindset that got him to Milwaukee, and how his rags-to-riches journey can serve as an inspiration to others, when the Brewers played at Fenway Park in late July.
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On going from being undrafted to reaching the big leagues:
“It’s mostly just having a lot of confidence in myself and having a lot of good people surrounding me. It started with the scout that signed me, and then there’s my support system — my family, and everyone else.
“I’ve definitely improved. At the same time, I’ve always felt like I had the stuff. It’s been more of how the Brewers have helped me know how to use it. When you get to a level like this… in the big leagues, everybody has good stuff, so it’s a matter of how you can best execute it. Pitch location is part of that.
“Another thing is that I’ve had to prove myself over a long period of time. I’ve had to prove to whomever that my stuff was good enough, that I was good enough, to pitch at this level.” Read the rest of this entry »
Maybe this isn’t charitable, but I picture Alex Bregman as being a lot like me. See, when I play a game – whether a sport or a board game – I’m always thinking about the most efficient way to win, what game actions are the most valuable, and how I can do those things more often. The best games don’t have clear best options at all times, but there’s almost always some strategy you can lean on to get ahead, and I greatly enjoy figuring that strategy out.
Bregman treats baseball like I treat Taverns of Tiefenthal, my favorite board game. He knows what the most valuable things to do in baseball are, and he does them more frequently than everyone else. If you look at his Statcast page, you’ll come away unimpressed. Hard hit rate? He’s in the 42nd percentile across the majors, below average. Think that hard hit rate is misleading? He’s average when it comes to maximum exit velocity (53rd percentile), barrel rate (50th), and even average exit velocity (59th). He’s well below average in sprint speed. It doesn’t sound like he should be an outstanding hitter, at least by the measurables.
Early in Bregman’s career, that would have been a laughable claim. He totaled 16.2 WAR on the back of a 162 wRC+ between 2018 and ’19, staking a claim as one of the best hitters in the game. But in the next two years, both injury-shortened, he fell back to earth. His .261/.353/.431 line was good for a 115 wRC+, a far cry from his earlier form. Was he a creation of the juiced ball? Sign stealing? Did pitchers figure him out? Read the rest of this entry »
