Monday night brought something unseen in the majors since September 7, 1901: a matchup between two teams on winning streaks of nine or more games. In this case, both the visiting Yankees and the hosting Braves were riding streaks of exactly nine wins, and it was New York who prevailed with a 5–1 victory.

Monday’s game also brought something with only slightly more precedent: the fourth appearance by the tallest outfield in AL/NL history, one made possible by the Yankees’ aggressive approach at the trade deadline and their momentary good fortune when it comes to injuries. Their lineup featured 6-foot-5 Joey Gallo in left field, 6-foot-7 Aaron Judge in center, and 6-foot-6 Giancarlo Stanton in right, each of whom figured significantly in the team’s win. That trio of elite power hitters has played a played a prominent role in helping the Yankees blow past the Red Sox, A’s and Mariners to the top of the AL Wild Card standings.

Facing the Braves’ Huascar Ynoa at Truist Park, Stanton swatted an opposite-field solo home run in the second inning to give the Yankees a 1–0 lead, then added a two-run double that scored both DJ LeMahieu (who was hit by a pitch) and Gallo (who walked) to break a 1-1 tie in the sixth. His first drive left the bat at 103.4 mph, his second at a scorching 119.2 mph:

The Yankees extended the lead against Edgar Santana in the eighth via a two-out Judge single, walks by Gallo and Luke Voit, and then a two-run single by Gary Sánchez, effectively sealing the game. Gallo, meanwhile, had the defensive play of the night via his diving catch of a Guillermo Heredia drive in the second inning:

Judge traveled a long ways — 87 feet, according to Statcast — to haul in Jorge Soler’s fly ball in the third:

Quipped Yankees manager Aaron Boone afterwards, “It’s nice to see the jumbo package out there playing really well.”

The Jumbo Package, or the Big Boy Outfield, or the Large Adult Sons of Brian Cashman — by whatever name, this is the tallest outfield in major league history, at least going by the listed heights at Baseball Reference. Those measurements may contain their share of fudge, but unless you’ve got a tape measure, that’s the best we’re going to do.

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Walker Buehler has been on a tear in the second half, leading all pitchers in WAR since the All-Star break at 1.8, just a hair ahead of Adam Wainwright, Frankie Montas, and Max Fried. For the season, he now ranks fourth in WAR among qualified starters (fifth if you include Jacob deGrom’s 92 preposterous innings), toting a 26.9% strikeout rate and a park-adjusted ERA 47% better than league average. His 2.11 ERA is more than half a run better than any other season in his career, and the park adjusted figure is his best by 15 points. It’s another great season from one of the consistently best pitchers in the majors; since becoming a full-time starter for the Dodgers back in 2018, Buehler has posted the 11th-most pitching WAR with the 19th-most innings pitched.

I am not breaking any news by pointing out that Buehler has been and continues to be excellent. The surface-level numbers indicate he has never been better. What caught my eye, however, was how he has gone about doing that. There have been some noticeable changes under the hood. For example, at age 26, he has lost over a full tick of velocity on his fastball compared to any prior season; based on my own research, you would expect a player of his age to lose only about 0.15 mph.

Buehler has also lost almost two percentage points on his strikeout rate. On its face, missing less bats and losing velocity is never something you want to see in a pitcher. (That said, he has brought his ground-ball rate back to pre-2020 levels, going from 35.5% last season to 43.8% this year, similar to his ’19 rate as well as a tick above the rest of the league in 2021.)

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Jimmy Kerr is pretty low-profile as far as prospects go. The 24-year-old infielder was a 33rd-round senior-sign in 2019 and currently playing for the Detroit Tigers’ High-A affiliate, the West Michigan Whitecaps. A standout during the College World Series in his draft year, he remains relatively unknown beyond the University of Michigan, where he earned a degree in Industrial Operations Engineering.

His knowledge of hitting promises to increase his profile. Kerr faces long odds to reach the big leagues, but he’s already begun gaining a foothold as an instructor. Last year, he co-founded K2 Baseball, an elite training facility in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Kerr talked hitting prior to a Whitecaps game earlier this month.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with your training facility. How did that come about?

Jimmy Kerr: “It was over the pandemic. A couple of my college teammates and I were up in northern Michigan — my parents have a place in Walloon Lake — kind of escaping for the summertime. We were working out at the local high school, trying to stay in shape, and had also ordered some workout equipment. Everybody was trying to start their own home gym at that time, so it was backordered and took awhile [to arrive].

“Once the weather turned and guys were going back to school, we rented out a space in Ann Arbor and put all the workout equipment in there. We put in a batting cage, turf, a portable mound, and started running a little baseball facility. It started with just some of our Michigan teammates who are in pro ball now, and then we turned into a business where we’ve got high school kids and youth baseball players. We’re doing training programs, lessons, and all that.”

Laurila: Who else was involved? Read the rest of this entry »

As the schedule hurtles towards the final month of the season, most of the division races have sorted themselves out. The real drama is in the Wild Card races in both leagues, with a handful of teams in each fighting over those last two playoff spots.

A quick refresher: my Power Rankings approach takes the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (50%/50% FIP- and RA9-) — and combines them to create an overall team quality metric. I add in a factor for “luck” — adjusting based on a team’s expected win-loss record — to produce a power ranking.

The Giants and Dodgers continue to elevate themselves over everyone else in baseball. Over the last two weeks, Los Angeles has gone 11–2 and closed the gap with first-place San Francisco to 2.5 games. The only shame is that they’re on course for a first-round matchup in the playoffs; whoever wins the wild card will end up playing whoever doesn’t win the NL West in the win-or-go-home matchup. For the Dodgers, Trea Turner has been a catalyst atop their lineup, but Max Muncy has been driving their offense recently, launching six home runs in August and putting himself into the NL MVP conversation alongside Turner. Those two are just a decimal point behind Fernando Tatis Jr. for the WAR lead in the NL.

The Giants continue to get phenomenal contributions from their pitching staff. Even though Anthony DeSclafani just landed on the Injured List with an ankle injury, Logan Webb is primed to pick up a lot of the slack. He hasn’t allowed more than two runs in a single start since a six-run blowup in Colorado on May 5. San Francisco’s lineup has also gotten a lot healthier recently, too, with Brandon Belt, Evan Longoria, and Tommy La Stella back from their respective injuries.

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These are notes on prospects from Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments of the Daily Prospect Notes here.

This past weekend, I made my way up to Wisconsin to get my first look at some recent Marlins and Cardinals High-A promotions. The fact that both organizations’ respective Low-A affiliates play home games in ballparks for which we have access to Statcast data makes these looks particularly exciting, as it affords us the opportunity to place them into a more robust context.

Eury Perez, RHP, Miami Marlins
Level & Affiliate: High-A Beloit Age: 18 Org Rank: 8 FV: 45
Line: 5 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 6 K

Notes
The buzz in the crowd at Saturday’s game was likely due to it being the debut weekend for Beloit’s brand new ballpark, but it could just as easily have been thanks to the young righty making his debut on the mound for the Snappers against Peoria. Just 18 years old, Perez is the youngest player at High-A, but he’s already earned himself a reputation as one of the most exciting pitching prospects in the Marlins’ system. After standing out at Miami’s instructs, the righty put together a spectacular season at Low-A Jupiter; opposing batters hit just .163 against him in his 56 innings of work with 82 strikeouts, 21 walks, and just two home runs, good for a 1.61 ERA and a 0.95 WHIP.

Perez’s best performance came earlier this month, when he struck out 11 batters in 4.1 innings against Low-A Tampa, which boasts the best record in the division and a staggering +245 run differential this season. He held the Tarpons’ lineup hitless, posting a 50% whiff rate and a CSW% of 42%, and his velocity sat 93–96 mph. That is up from the 91–95 seen at instructs and more or less on par with where he sat throughout his time in Jupiter, though he’s touched 97 on a handful of occasions this season. Read the rest of this entry »

See if this story is familiar. A pitcher’s fastball appears so-so using traditional metrics but is revealed to possess off-the-chart spin rates. The pitcher then succeeds by locating up in the zone, taking advantage of that trait. At first glance, Astros reliever Phil Maton fits the bill. Here’s what he usually does with his four-seamer:

Maton’s fastball velocity is in the 20th percentile, but that doesn’t matter too much, because its spin rate is in the 92nd percentile. It’s what makes him big league viable — well, at least that’s the popular narrative. What isn’t as commonly known is this: Maton might have the league’s zaniest fastball. Zaniest? Trust me, this is an appropriate use of that word.

The anatomy of a fastball is complex, but let’s start with movement. Using our site’s pitch type splits, we see that Maton’s fastball has averaged 6.5 inches of ride (vertical movement) and 0.5 inches of run (horizontal movement) in 2021. The lack of vertical movement is strange, but hardly outlandish; plenty of major league fastballs are similarly deficient. What stands out is the absence of arm-side run. Consider Gerrit Cole’s fastball, the gold standard for righties, which features around seven inches of run and 10 inches of ride. There’s ample movement in both directions with an emphasis on the upward, bat-missing variety. Maton’s fastball is different; it’s as straight as an arrow and sinks like a stone. What gives?

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A perennial All-Star catcher who deserved better from Hall of Fame voters, Bill Freehan spent his entire 15-season career with the Tigers, his hometown team. Durable and skilled on both sides of the ball, he served as the starter on Detroit’s only two postseason teams across a 38-year span, including catching every inning of the 1968 World Series and making two of that seven-game epic’s key defensive plays, most notably the catch of Tim McCarver’s foul ball to dethrone the defending champion Cardinals and seal the Tigers’ only title between 1946 and ’83.

The photo of pitcher Mickey Lolich — whom Freehan had guided to three complete-game victories in the Series — leaping into his catcher’s arms after securing the final out was an iconic one. It was the culmination of an historic pairing, too; that battery started together in 324 regular-season games, a major league record.

Freehan died on Thursday, August 19, at the age of 79. For years, he had suffered from Alzheimer’s disease — which his family suspected was related to the concussions he suffered during his playing career — and had been living under hospice care. His condition prevented him from participating in the Tigers’ 50th anniversary celebration of that championship back in 2018.

Even while spending nearly his entire career playing alongside the man known as “Mr. Tiger,” Hall of Famer Al Kaline, Freehan was considered the team leader. “He was the heart and soul of the ballclub,” said teammate Jim Price, the Tigers’ backup catcher from 1967 to ’72. In 1968, Sport magazine’s Arnold Hano hailed him as “the thinking man’s catcher,” writing that he “leads the way sergeants lead, not second lieutenants. He leads by example.”

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One quick note before you read this piece about Jake Reed: He just went on the IL with forearm tightness. He’s also been on four different teams this year, so it’s not like he’s some surefire All-Star who needs to get healthy. I probably wouldn’t have written this article if I hadn’t already been halfway through it when he hit the IL. But I was halfway through, and I think Reed is interesting. You just might, too, after reading this.

As much as I watch baseball, I haven’t seen every random reliever in the game. I was innocently watching a Mets-Giants clash last week when — well, here, just watch it:

If you’re like me, that delivery made you sit up in your seat as surely as a shot of espresso. It’s just so … sudden. It’s not that he sidearms it; there are plenty of righty sidearmers in baseball these days. It’s not that he short-arms it; there are plenty of those guys in baseball these days. But the combination! It’s like nothing I’ve seen recently, and it focuses you on how quickly batters have to go from waiting to “oh god where is the ball coming from?”
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Nightcrawling

As a night person, I love late-night baseball, and this weekend was ideal for that, with the most compelling series, at least in terms of playoff implications, all on the West Coast. The Giants and Dodgers both took two out of three from the A’s and Mets, respectively, so nothing changed at the top of the NL West standings, but keeping the status quo is at least slightly good news for San Francisco.

Meanwhile, the Padres continued to scuffle, needing a dramatic win on Saturday to avoid getting swept by Philadelphia. Losers of nine out of their last 11, all of the excuses for their poor play have revolved around a pitching staff being held together by glue and string after a crippling series of injuries. The offense deserves an equal brunt of the blame; in those 11 games, they’ve scored a grand total of 37 runs, and three of those contests were at Coors Field. It’s hard to call any series in August pivotal, but for San Diego — now closer to the Rockies than first place in the division and suddenly on the outside looking in for the Wild Card game —this week’s three-game set hosting the Dodgers feels like just that.

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The Learning and Developing a Pitch series returned in June after being on hiatus last year due to the pandemic. Each week, we’ll hear from three pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features Keegan Akin, Kolby Allard, and Jharel Cotton on their changeups.

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Keegan Akin, Baltimore Orioles

“It was one of the first pitches I ever learned — I was probably 12 years old — and honestly, it wasn’t a very good pitch for me all the way through high school and college. But then I really worked on it in the offseason going into 2019. That was when I told myself, ‘You know, I need to make this into kind of a go-to pitch for whenever I need it.’ So every day, I played catch with that grip. I was throwing it 90 feet, 120 feet, trying to have it coming out feeling like a fastball. A changeup is a feel pitch, so you need to become comfortable with it.

“The grip has been the same since the offseason of 2018. I tinkered with it and tried different things here and there, found one that worked for me, and I’ve rolled with it ever since. It’s kind of a circle change, I guess is the best way to put it. I learned it as a typical circle, with all five fingers on the ball. I have bigger hands, so I used to cut it a lot — it would turn into a cut changeup — and I didn’t want that, so I started moving it out further and further toward the end of my hand. It’s more based off my ring finger, my pinky finger and my middle finger, and I’m trying to throw as hard as I can. I’m throwing it like a fastball and letting the grip do the work. Read the rest of this entry »