What a month it has been for pitchers. We witnessed no-hitters by Joe Musgrove, Carlos Rodón and, just yesterday, John Means. Corbin Burnes threw a major-league record number of strikeouts without issuing a walk (49 punch outs and counting, though Burnes is currently sidelined). And Shane Bieber has pitched a multitude of double-digit strikeout games by. Oh, and Jacob deGrom and Gerrit Cole are just toying with hitters. On the flip side, it’s been a dismal start at the plate for most of the game’s hitters, though there are a few exceptions (here’s looking at you, Mike Trout and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.). Last week, Brendan Gawlowski covered April’s .232 league-wide batting average, an historic low. A combination of the highest strikeout rate on record and a below-average BABIP made the first month of the season one to forget for fans of offense and batted balls.

According to an anonymous GM recently quoted in The Athletic, the root of the league’s hitting woes is simple: “Pitching is too good.” The league-wide strikeout rate has been on the rise for several years now, but to see the rate jump like it has in the season’s first month is alarming and worth investigating. Are pitchers just getting better? Are hitters selling out for the long ball? It’s probably a combination of both. To dissect the strikeout problem, let’s look at how batters are striking out and what it reveals about how they are being pitched.

Not all strikeouts are created equal. To start, there are three ways a pitcher can earn a strike: a called strike, a swinging strike, and a foul ball (to keep it simple, I’m considering bunt attempts swings here). Going back to the 2015 season, a clear trend has set in.

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With a revamped lineup, rotation, and front office, the Mets were supposed to rank among the NL’s top teams, ideally while offering at least somewhat less dysfunction than during the Wilpon family’s tenure as owners. Given an offense that has wheezed its way to an NL-low 3.30 runs per game as the team has stumbled to an 11-12 start, however, the Mets’ brass decided to shake things up by firing hitting coaches Chili Davis and Tom Slater after Monday night’s 6-5 loss to the Cardinals. The pair have been replaced by Hugh Quattlebaum, previously the Mets’ minor league director of hitting development, and Kevin Howard, their director of player development. You may be shocked to learn that this move did not come off smoothly.

It’s not the fault of Davis, who was in his third season as the Mets’ hitting coach, or Slater, in his fourth season as the assistant hitting coach, that key newcomers Francisco Lindor and James McCann and holdovers such as Dominic Smith and Jeff McNeil have all underperformed on the offensive side. The latter duo had previously thrived under Davis and Slater, and currently Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo are knocking the stuffing out of the ball. Scapegoating coaches is a time-honored tradition by struggling teams, however. If you can’t fire the players…

The timing of the dismissals was curious, to say the least. The Mets had scored 18 runs over their previous three games, two of them wild weekend wins over the Phillies, snapping out of a skid during which they had scored just seven runs over their previous five games against the Nationals and Red Sox. Read the rest of this entry »

Cole Wilcox started to say “two-seamer” when bringing up the fastball he threw at the University of Georgia. The 21-year-old Tampa Bay Rays prospect then reversed course and called it a sinker, which it really wasn’t. Featuring mostly arm-side run, the high-velocity offering got only a modicum of depth. Given the grip, that kind of came with the territory. More on that in a moment.

Wilcox was selected in the third round of the 2020 draft by San Diego, who subsequently shipped the right-hander to the Rays as part of the Blake Snell deal. Seen as a potential first-rounder last summer — signability questions caused the sophomore-eligible draftee to drop — Wilcox spent time at the Padres alternate site prior to changing organizations in December. It was there that he restructured an arsenal that now comprises a two-seamer, a slider, a changeup, and a work-in-progress four-seamer.

Which brings us to the heater he’d featured in the SEC. Regardless of how one might define it, it’s now part of his past.

“It used to be a four-seam sinker,” explained Wilcox, who is beginning the current campaign with the Low-A Charleston River Dogs. “Really, the only thing good about it was that it was hard. That’s what I threw in college, but since I’ve been in pro ball, I’ve switched to a two-seam. It gets a lot more movement, a lot more depth.” Read the rest of this entry »

George Carlin once said, “Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.”

I’m reminded of this quote whenever a new rule change is proposed or implemented in baseball and is largely (and predictably) followed by outrage from outspoken purists. Of course, we all know that rule changes themselves are nothing new; it’s been about a century since the ball was first brought to life and decades since the mound was lowered, both changes that were met with contemporaneous skepticism of their own.

Some of the rule changes being proposed and implemented in the sport today address similar aspects of the game as those of yesteryear, namely, counteracting pitchers’ dominance and steering the sport away from a subsequent three-true-outcomes landscape. But another seeming motivation behind MLB’s tinkering these days is simply to shorten the length of games – a hard sell to those of us who would prefer more baseball to less. Unsurprisingly, what was once generally a skeptical public reception has morphed into one that is much more cynical. But what idealism could that cynicism be masking?

A baseball idealist would likely regard rule changes as a last resort, drastic measures made necessary by desperate times. Perhaps the disconnect between baseball fans and MLB simply comes down to a disagreement about whether or not the current climate constitutes times desperate enough for such drastic measures. Seeing as how MLB has already proven its willingness to toy with these types of changes, though, there seems little point in rehashing the merits of tinkering. And there is potential afforded by an openness to change, potential that has been largely overlooked and is therefore untapped. Given the likelihood that rule changes will continue to be considered and implemented in baseball, it’s my belief that these changes should be viewed by MLB as a mechanism to allow greater access to, and inclusion within, the sport. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s not sugarcoat it: Kris Bryant was bad last year. Sure, it was only 147 plate appearances, but the sheer broadness of his struggles made it feel longer. He set career lows in batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, walk rate, barrel rate — you name it, and there’s a good chance he fell short in it. With the Cubs in salary relief mode this offseason, there was talk of a non-tender, and it certainly wasn’t good for Bryant’s free agency hopes.

That feels like less of a worry now. Through the first month of the season, Bryant has been tremendous. April marks don’t compare well to full-season numbers, but far from continuing his swoon, he’s posting the best numbers of his career nearly across the board. He looks like an MVP candidate again, and it’s a good thing for the Cubs, who need all the offensive help they can get given how many of their regulars are struggling.

What changed? As Tom Verducci detailed, Bryant is swinging differently, and it’s paid dividends so far this year. Let’s dig into the numbers and see how that new swing (in fairness, it’s still pretty similar to the old swing) is working so well.

Take a look at this heatmap of the four-seam fastballs Bryant faced in 2015 and ’16:

That’s right: four-seam fastballs low in the zone. Bryant devoured those pitches en route to 14 WAR over the two years. Next, look at the four-seamers he saw in 2019 and ’20:

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The White Sox took a giant blow Sunday when young centerfielder Luis Robert injured his right hip flexor running to first while trying to beat out a grounder to third against Cleveland. As it turns out, the injury wasn’t minor, as he was diagnosed with a Grade III strain — a complete rupture of the muscle involved — and will not be able to resume baseball activities for 12–16 weeks.

Chicago hasn’t officially ruled out Robert for the season, but there’s enough uncertainty that senior VP/general manager Rick Hahn did not give a particularly optimistic assessment of when his return could be.

“But it’s safe to say in terms of projecting his possible return, it’s too soon to know. Quite frankly, we are not going to be able to provide you with an educated projection of that for another 12 weeks or so as we see how he progresses.”

The most serious consequence of Robert’s injury is naturally a painful recovery process for last year’s AL Rookie of the Year runner-up. But the White Sox have more than 130 games to play, meaning there will also be consequences for the team and some pivotal decisions to make.

Losing Robert is particularly unwelcome for the Sox, as he represents the second serious loss at a position at which they’re not terribly deep. In an unfortunately timely look I did last month at baseball’s most irreplaceable players, the ZiPS projections pegged him as the seventh-most crucial player in the majors in terms of effect on the playoff race.

From a straight-up projection standpoint, Robert falls short of most of the names on this list. Just on the Sox, ZiPS thinks Lucas Giolito is a significantly more valuable player overall, at least when he’s not pitching in the morning. But if something should happen to Giolito, Chicago has spare arms to patch up the hole. If the team loses Robert, let’s just say ZiPS does not have a case of Leurymania or Engelalia. The race with the Twins is likely going to be a tight one, and the Royals have shown surprising spunk. The White Sox could ill afford an injury to their center fielder.

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Through the first four starts of his season, Dustin May looked as though he’d put it all together. The hard-throwing, high-kicking ginger mop top was getting the strikeouts to match his elite stuff, and putting together a performance that fit right in with the rest of the Dodgers’ top-notch rotation. Unfortunately, it’s going to be a long while before May gets to build upon his strong showing. After leaving Saturday’s start against the Brewers in obvious pain, he’ll undergo Tommy John surgery on May 11 and miss the remainder of the season, an injury that comes at a time when the Dodgers’ vaunted depth has already taken significant hits on both sides of the ball.

In the second inning of Saturday’s game, May threw a 2-2 pitch to Billy McKinney that was a couple of feet outside. The 23-year-old righty winced, signaled for the trainer, and then departed, with manager Dave Roberts describing him reporting “a shooting sensation” in his right elbow. An MRI revealed the UCL damage, and he’ll go under the knife of Dr. Neal ElAttrache next week.

As Jake Mailhot documented less than two weeks ago, by mixing his curve and 98-99 mph four-seam fastball into what was predominantly a sinker/cutter mix, May was missing far more bats this year than before with his light-up-the-radar-gun stuff. Updating the stats, where he had struck out 20.8% of batters in his 80.2 innings in 2019-20, he’d nearly doubled that to 37.6% in 23 innings this year — the NL’s fourth-highest rate among pitchers with at least 20 innings behind Jacob deGrom, Corbin Burnes, and Freddy Peralta. Meanwhile, May’s 31.2% strikeout-to-walk differential ranked third behind only Burnes and deGrom. Of the Dodgers’ other starters, only Clayton Kershaw has outdone both his 2.74 ERA and 3.24 FIP, while only Trevor Bauer has the better ERA, and Julio Urías and Walker Buehler the better FIPs. All told, he was hangin’ with the big boys and fitting right in. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite playing for the Yankees and having the largest contract ever handed out to a pitcher, I think Gerrit Cole’s start to the 2021 season is going under the radar. Now, I have no empirical evidence that this is the case, but go with me here. I think two things are at play. First, Jacob deGrom is striking out every batter he faces (do not fact check me on that) and plays in the same city. Second, the Yankees’ struggles have been the talk of baseball in the early going, with much of the focus centered on the lineup and rightfully so. The team’s performance thus far has been extremely underwhelming, though they are 9-4 since their 5-10 start.

None of the blame for the Yankees tepid beginning can be put on Cole, however. He is off to a fantastic start. Through his first six starts, he has struck out 44.3% of the batters he has faced and walked only 2.1%. That strikeout rate is third in the majors behind deGrom and Corbin Burnes; the walk rate sits fourth in the league behind Burnes, Zach Eflin, and Walker Buehler. Put those two figures together and Cole has a K-BB% of 42.1%, only a few percentage points behind Burnes and deGrom and a shade under 10 percentage points above Joe Musgrove. The difference between Cole and Musgrove is about the same as the difference between Musgrove and Clayton Kershaw who is 19th on the leaderboard. Cole’s 2.4 WAR is tops in the league, though he has made one more start than both deGrom and Burnes, though I will note that he has only thrown two and two thirds more innings than deGrom so on a rate basis he has actually been more effective in accumulating WAR. Most of the difference has to do with a .315 BABIP allowed compared to deGrom’s .241 and a strand rate that is 8.3 percentage points lower.

So, Cole has been great. But this is not a breakout. Cole has been one of the best handful of pitchers in the sport since he first donned an Astros uniform in 2018. In the three preceding seasons, he posted a 36.6% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate over 485.2 innings, good for 6.05 WAR per 200 innings pitched. What is notable is that early on, he is pitching as well as ever. Better even. Since 2018, Cole only has one six start stretch where he struck out at least 44.3% of opposing hitters (44.6% from the end of July to end of August in 2018) and he has never posted a six start stretch walking so few batters (on a rate basis). At this point baseball fans are accustomed to Cole’s dominance over the opposition, but the degree to which he is doing so is unprecedented. Read the rest of this entry »

Throughout the season, most teams hold weekly meetings with their baseball leadership group, usually involving those at a director level or higher. These are often done via conference call or Zoom, as sometimes there is an executive with the team on a road trip and various scouting officials can be spread across the country (or even internationally) checking out players. Sometimes it’s a brief check-in just to see what everyone is up to, but around once a month, it’s time to dig deep on the road ahead and talk about some specific tasks to address needs and issues. While one month in the books is still a small sample size, it’s enough to get a vibe of where your team is at, and where it at least might be going, so I put together some bullet points for each team’s call this week. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, you may have noticed that Kenta Maeda prominently featured in a Matthew Roberson article on this site, though probably not in the way he would have liked. He was the guy throwing the pitches that led to the “nearly 900 feet of home run” that Franmil Reyes hit. Maeda has been on the business end of a lot of home run highlights so far this year. He’s already given up seven of them after only surrendering nine last year in three times the number of innings pitched.

This is the same guy who finished second in AL Cy Young voting last season and allowed a stingy .219 wOBA (97th percentile). This year things are quite different, as Maeda carries a 6.56 ERA, a 6.16 FIP and a 4.19 xFIP through his first five starts. That 97th percentile wOBA from last season? Well it’s in the fourth percentile this season at .439. You might look at his elite walk rate of 4.5%, his swollen HR/FB rate of 26.9% and his soaring .372 BABIP and think that this is just a bit of bad luck. He’s not going to end the season having more than a quarter of his fly balls go for homers. But there’s more than just bad luck going on here. Maeda is getting hit extremely hard. He’s already allowed as many hard hits (95 mph or higher) in 2021 as he did all of last season and his xERA (the newest ERA estimator found here at FanGraphs, courtesy of Statcast) is 5.17.

So what’s going on? If you came into this article knowing anything about Maeda, it might be the fact that he has a great slider. According to our pitch values, it’s hard to find one better. Maeda’s was the sixth best slider in baseball from 2016-20. Here are his pitch values on his four main offerings throughout his career, with usage thrown in as well.

Over the years, he has become more reliant on his plus slider and this year is no different, as he’s throwing it at a career-high rate. But the pitch has betrayed him completely. All of his pitches have struggled, mind you, but because the slider has been his most consistent pitch throughout his career, I think it’s worth focusing on. Read the rest of this entry »