Owen White opened a lot of eyes last year, and he did so by consistently shutting down the opposition. Pitching primarily with the Low-A Down East Wood Ducks, the 22-year-old right-hander punched out 56 batters in 35.1 innings and posted a 3.06 ERA. He then put the finishing touches on a stellar first professional season by dominating the Arizona Fall League, winning all five of his decisions, logging a 1.91 ERA, and again fanning over a batter per inning. Buoyed by those performances, the 2018 second-round pick — Tommy John surgery and the pandemic delayed the start of his career — came into the current campaign No.84 on our 2022 Top 100 Prospects list.

His second professional season has been more of the up-and-down variety. In nine starts with the High-A Hickory Crawdads, the hard-throwing China Grove, North Carolina native has a middling 4.73 ERA, albeit with 61 strikeouts in 45.2 innings. Displaying plus stuff as he develops, White continues to miss bats.

White, who was ranked No. 5 on our newly released Texas Rangers Top Prospects list, discussed his repertoire and approach to pitching at the tail end of the Arizona Fall League season.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with who you are as a pitcher. Give me a self scouting report.

Owen White: “I think what separates me right now is the difference between my four- and my two-seam. I’ve gotten a lot more ground balls here in the Fall League. I’m able to elevate the four-seam, then follow that with a two-seam to produce ground balls and double plays. In the long run, that saves me pitches. Those two pitches have definitely benefited me the most.”

Laurila: How long have you been throwing both a two- and a four-seam?

White: “When I got drafted, I was mainly two-seam. After I had TJ [in 2019], I started throwing only four-seams. Then this year I started working on a sinker. It really kicked in this summer.”

Laurila: Your sinker is a two-seam. Read the rest of this entry »

I have something of an annual tradition here at FanGraphs. Once a year, give or take, I write about how Yordan Alvarez is underrated. I can’t help it; he continues to be one of the very few best hitters in baseball, and he continues to get less credit than he deserves. Now, though, he doesn’t need credit, because he has cash — $115 million worth, to be precise — as he and the Astros agreed to a contract extension that will keep him in Houston through 2028:

Slugger Yordan Álvarez and the Houston Astros are in agreement on a six-year, $115 million contract extension, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN. Contract kicks in next season. Biggest contract ever for a DH and $26M/year for 3 FA years. And Astros lock up a great hitter.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 3, 2022

Even though I just mentioned what an excellent hitter Alvarez is, it bears repeating. This year, he’s hitting a scorching .295/.391/.624, good for a 192 wRC+, second in baseball. He’s doing it without a ludicrous BABIP; in fact, his .280 mark looks likely to increase as the season goes on. That makes his offensive production all the more remarkable; it’s easy to post a hot batting line if you’re BABIP’ing .400, but Alvarez does it the old-fashioned way, with walks and extra-base hits.

How does Alvarez get to that massive production? By obliterating the baseball consistently. He’s barreled up a whopping 19.1% of his batted balls this year. That’s Stantonian power, or even a bit better; Stanton checks in at 17.2% since the start of the 2015 season, for example. Since Alvarez came up in 2019, he’s sixth in baseball in barrel rate (among hitters with at least one season qualifying for the batting title), and the guys in front of him are a who’s who of enormous power hitters:

This list does a good job of explaining the possible highs and lows of Alvarez’s production, but it leaves something out. One way to rack up barrels is to be powerful and almost exclusively hit fly balls. Sanó, Gallo, and Sánchez get to theirs that way. So, too, does Trout. He’s become increasingly fly ball-heavy in recent years in an attempt to tap into his power.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a major league pitcher right now, there’s a good chance life is pretty smooth. You’ve realized that you can throw more and more sliders without repercussions; it might even be an ideal strategy. You’ve also learned that by using a two-seam grip, you can upgrade a regular slider into a “sweeper,” which is shockingly effective for a pitch that’s so easy to learn. You’ve probably gained a much better understanding of how and why certain pitches do or don’t move. Knowledge is power, especially in baseball, and the modern pitcher is possibly the most educated athlete around.

Meanwhile, there are formerly innovative approaches that you don’t think twice about nowadays – they’ve become the norm. A great example is the high fastball. Back in the days of yore, a perfect fastball meant one located at the knees, down and away. But as pitch data became widely available, teams started to realize that throwing the fastball up would maximize swings and misses and minimize damage on contact. Regular high cheese also served to counteract the so-called fly ball revolution; an uppercut swing made golfing pitches at the bottom of the zone easier but left a hole at the top. Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Fuller taught high school English in Higganum, Connecticut for four years before becoming the hitting coach of the Baltimore Orioles. An infielder at the University of Connecticut before spending a year in the Arizona Diamondbacks system, the 32-year-old Fuller went on to earn a Master’s degree in Education from the University of New Haven. Books, and the lessons they provide, remain a big part of his life.

Asked about his favorites to teach, Fuller began with Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“That was a big one for me in 10th-grade honors,” said Fuller, who has tutored hitters at different levels for over a decade. “From a morality standpoint, there are so many things that I connect with. Kids love reading the book and being able to tie it in with what it means to be a good person. They think about other people — about walking in their shoes, as Atticus put it —and the values and morals are still the same today.”

Fuller cited Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” and Stephen Crane’s “The Red Badge of Courage” as other books he’s seen impact specific age groups in particular ways. The lessons are analogous to his current job.

“It’s kind of the same thing we’re doing with our hitters,” explained Fuller, who is well-schooled in hitting analytics. “We’re taking sometimes complex, abstract things that maybe the hitters aren’t really grasping, and turning them into something tangible. They’ll say, ‘Oh, man, that makes sense.” That’s what I enjoy most about being a teacher.” Read the rest of this entry »

As far as silly and offbeat sports stories go, it would be hard to top the fantasy football spat between Reds outfielder Tommy Pham and Giants outfielder Joc Pederson. Last week, Pham — who annually leads the league in umbrage taken and who has already made headlines this year by challenging Luke Voit to a fight — drew a fine and a three-game suspension for slapping Pederson in a pre-game confrontation. Not stopping there, earlier this week, he dragged league commissioner Mike Trout into the dispute. It’s all rather comical, but lost in all of this beyond his characteristically bemused response to the whole matter is that Pederson is off to a terrific start with the Giants, putting up some eye-opening numbers.

Before we go further — and then I promise you that we’ll move onto baseball — here’s Joc explaining his side of the football story for those of you whose attention was elsewhere:

Joc shares details of what happened in his fantasy football league that started his altercation with Tommy Pham today pic.twitter.com/d9NBTwPVoG

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 28, 2022

Moving along… After winning a World Series ring for a second year in a row (with the Dodgers in 2020 and then with the Braves last fall), Pederson joined the Giants via a one-year, $6 million deal in mid-March. It was the second year in a row that he had to take a slight pay cut, but then neither of his last two seasons had been up to par. He entered 2020 as a career 119 wRC+ hitter who beyond his cup-of-coffee 2014 season had only once slipped below 116 (100 in an injury-marred 2017), but he hit just .190/.285/.397 (86 wRC+) with -0.2 WAR in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, and then .238/.310/.422 (93 wRC+) with 0.3 WAR last year for the Cubs (who signed him to a one-year, $7 million deal) and Braves (who acquired him in mid-July).

Pederson more than made up for his in-season struggles in both 2020 and ’21 by hitting a combined .282/.341/.474 with five homers in 85 PA in the two postseasons — Joctober is his month — and, improbably, introducing pearl necklaces as a fashion accessory for men. His three-run pinch-hit homer in Game 3 of the Division Series against the Brewers’ Adrian Houser provided all of the runs the Braves needed to close out that take a two-games-to-one lead in that series, and his two-run homer off the Dodgers’ Max Scherzer in Game 2 of the NLCS helped send his former team to defeat. The necklace he sported as a good luck charm became so famous that he donated it to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Braves’ gaudy World Series ring even featured a single pearl as a tribute to his iconic display.

In joining the Giants, Pederson figured to see action primarily as part of a left field platoon, with right field and designated hitter possibilities as well, and so far things have gone according to plan. He’s started 22 times in left, eight at DH, and six in right, with all but one of those starts coming against righties. The Giants have used four different players as his platoon-mates in left, a situation necessitated in part by Brandon Belt landing on the injured list twice (once for COVID-19, and currently for knee inflammation) and righty-swinging Darin Ruf getting a share of the work manning first base in Belt’s absence.

So far, few things have gone as right for the Giants this year as the Pederson signing. The 30-year-old slugger has hit .268/.340/.583 with 12 home runs, including three in a wild game against the Mets on May 24, a career first and a first for a Giant at AT&T Park. While his total of 144 plate appearances leaves him 11 short of qualifying for the batting title, his slugging percentage ranks fourth in the National League among players with at least 140 PA, and his 157 wRC+ ranks fifth. Those 12 homers are a team high and tied for sixth in the league; the 13 other players in the NL with at least 10 homers all have at least 189 PA, and 10 of them have at least 200. Read the rest of this entry »

It seems like almost yesterday when, amidst the lockout’s flurry of recriminations and constantly shifting arbitrary deadlines, we weren’t quite sure if there was even going to be a 2022 season at all. But Opening Day arrived after a short delay, and now we’re just about a third of the way through the season. The trade deadline is just two months out and as we saw last year, the elimination of the August waiver-trade period served to increase the stakes. While we don’t know the exact contours of what the pennant races will look like or which destinations make the most sense for potential trade candidates, the basic outlines of the season have been drawn. Short of some major surprises, we can start speculating about a few of the more interesting players likely to be available.

Juan Soto, Washington Nationals

The official position of the Washington Nationals is that they aren’t trading Juan Soto, no way, no how. I’m not sure I actually believe them. Soto will be a free agent after the 2024 season and has already turned down a 13-year, $350 million extension offer from the team. Plus, the longer they hang onto him, the less mega of a mega-package they’re likely to net in return for their superstar. It’s tempting to compare Soto’s situation with Bryce Harper’s, but as he approached free agency, the Nationals were fielding a team they had reason to think was competitive. This year’s squad is looking up at the Reds, and the farm system doesn’t have anywhere near the talent needed to quickly salvage the situation. The possibility of a sale and Soto’s age complicate the calculus – if Washington was able to convince him to stick around, he’s young enough that he’s likely to still be very good the next time they are. Soto isn’t posting his normal numbers, but ZiPS sees little reason to worry; it thinks that Soto’s hit data should have resulted in a BABIP closer to .320 and a slugging percentage well in excess of .500, similar to his xBA and xSLG. It would stink for Nationals fans, and putting together a deal worthy of netting Soto is its own challenge, but a trade could be a possibility come August. Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers once again have one of the best pitching staffs in the major leagues. That’s nothing surprising; the last time they allowed more than four runs per game was back in 2010, when they finished fourth in the NL West. This season, they’ve been better than ever, allowing just 3.14 runs per game through nearly a third of the season. Their park- and league-adjusted ERA is 30% under the league average, easily the best in the majors. And they’ve accomplished this despite missing Clayton Kershaw, Andrew Heaney, and Blake Treinen for large chunks of the season. The man leading the pitching staff in WAR through the first two months of the season isn’t who you’d expect either: Tyler Anderson.

In an offseason headlined by Freddie Freeman, Anderson was an under-the-radar acquisition. Brought in to provide some depth to their pitching staff, the aforementioned injuries to Kershaw and Heaney thrust him into a key role in the Dodgers’ starting rotation. And outside of a seven-run blowup against the Phillies on May 12, he’s been absolutely dominant, allowing two runs or fewer in all of his other appearances and currently on a 20-inning scoreless streak.

Prior to this year, Anderson had put up a 4.62 ERA and a 4.43 FIP across more than 600 innings in six seasons. Both of those marks were a bit inflated, since he started out his career with the Rockies; his park- and league-adjusted ERA and FIP sat a hair above league average at 101 and 102, respectively. That sort of production was what the Dodgers were probably expecting from him when they brought him in without a clear spot in the rotation. His first two outings came out of the bullpen in a piggyback role paired with Tony Gonsolin, but when Heaney went down with a shoulder injury, he was inserted into the rotation and hasn’t looked back.

Anderson has been pitching better than ever, even including that one bad outing against the Phillies, posting career bests in ERA, FIP, xFIP, and strikeout and walk rates. The biggest difference maker for him has been one single pitch: his changeup. He’s always possessed a good one, but it’s been leaps and bounds better this year, and it starts with his pitch mix.

He’s throwing his changeup 31.2% of the time this season, though that’s not the highest rate of his career; that came in 2020 when he threw it 33% of the time while with the Giants. More importantly, he’s reduced the usage of his four-seam fastball to just 30%, making his changeup the featured pitch in his repertoire. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve probably seen Adam Cimber pitch before. It looks strange, like this:

Or fine, maybe you haven’t seen Cimber himself, but you’ve seen someone like him. Righty, low arm slot, baffles same-handed hitters despite an eight-handle fastball (that’s one with an average velocity in the 80s, for those of you who don’t speak obscure bond market jargon).

As you’d expect, Cimber has been far better against same-handed batters in his career. It’s not particularly close, either; he’s allowed a .315 wOBA to lefties compared to just a .275 to righties. That’s just the name of the game when you’re a soft-tossing sidearmer. Batters who get a good look at your delivery will give you fits.

There’s another reason that sidearmers don’t fare well against opposite-handed batters: Their arsenal just doesn’t match up very well. If you can think of one of these pitchers, they probably throw a predictable mix of fastballs and sliders. It’s simply the natural arsenal from that arm slot. You can run fastballs in and mix in sliders that start out headed for the batter’s hip before ending in the opposite batter’s box. Read the rest of this entry »

Noah Syndergaard’s return to New York on Tuesday night did not go well. In his first start in the Big Apple since signing with the Angels last November, the 29-year-old righty gave up five runs and didn’t make it out of the third inning as his team extended its losing streak to six games via a 9–1 thrashing at the hands of the Yankees. After missing nearly all of the past two seasons due to Tommy John surgery, a pitcher who was the game’s hardest-throwing starter is in the process of reinventing himself, but the results have been rather uneven.

Syndergaard agreed to a one-year, $21 million deal with the Angels last November, a day before the deadline for him to accept or reject the $18.4 million qualifying offer he received from the Mets. He missed all of the 2020 season after tearing his UCL in March and then made just two one-inning starts last year following setbacks in his rehab — first a bout of inflammation in his right elbow in late May, then a positive COVID-19 test in late August — so it would not have been a surprise for him to stay in Queens on a one-year deal and rebuild his value. And while Syndergaard had interest from multiple suitors, some of them willing to sign him to a multi-year deal despite his long absence, he told reporters that he was intrigued by the Angels’ plan to keep him healthy. Via MLBcom’s Rhett Bollinger:

“It was a no-brainer once I had that sitdown meeting with Perry,” Syndergaard said Friday. “He had a really in-depth plan of attack to get me back to where I was in 2015, ’16 and ’18. Not pitching for two years, he had a great game plan that I’m 100% confident in that’s gonna keep me healthy and allow me to flourish and blossom to my true potential.”

The idea of pitching in a six-man rotation appealed to Syndergaard, as it’ll help keep his innings total at a manageable level in his first full season back from his elbow surgery. The Angels utilize the six-man rotation to make room for two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who stayed mostly healthy throughout the 2021 season while making 23 starts and throwing 130 1/3 innings.

Syndergaard said his innings total will be limited next season, but he didn’t have a total in mind just yet.

For that stretch that Syndergaard mentioned, he was one of the top pitchers in baseball… when he was available. From 2015 to ’18, only Clayton Kershaw outdid Syndergaard’s 2.66 FIP; only Kershaw, teammate Jacob deGrom, and Max Scherzer beat his 2.93 ERA; and only eight pitchers had a higher strikeout-walk differential than his 21.6% (27.1% strikeout rate, 5.5% walk rate). Syndergaard’s 14.4 WAR for that period ranked “only” 15th because he threw just 518.1 innings in that span, the majors’ 71st-highest total. A strained latissimus dorsi limited him to just seven starts and 30.1 innings in 2017 (who can forget his refusal to take an MRI for shoulder and biceps discomfort, followed by a 1.1-inning start and then a nearly five-month absence?), and then he missed nearly seven weeks in 2018 due to a strained ligament in his right index finger. Read the rest of this entry »

Broadcasters see a lot of games, and as a result, they see a lot of great pitching performances. Which of them would qualify as “the best” is, of course, subjective. For instance, a no-hitter is always going to stand out, but a two-hitter with a huge strikeout total is arguably even more impressive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. With that in mind, I recently posed this question to a cross section of big league broadcasters: What is the best pitching performance you’ve seen?

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Robert Ford, Houston Astros

“It would have to be Gerrit Cole throwing a one-hit shutout in 2018 with 16 strikeouts. I’ve been fortunate to call three no-hitters. Two of them were individual no-hitters. There was Justin Verlander’s last one, and the other was Mike Fiers. The Verlander one would be second on my list. The Cole performance was even more impressive.

“Cole was just dominant. He had everything working. I can’t remember who got the hit off of him, but looking back, it’s amazing that anybody did. Honestly, if he were to have that same performance, nine times out of 10 it would have been a no-hitter. This was the exception — the one that wasn’t. I think he had a perfect game-score.” Read the rest of this entry »