Think of the stereotypical curveball thrown to start an at-bat. Picture it in your mind’s eye. It’s big and loopy, starting high and then swooping into the zone to steal a strike from the incredulous batter. It’s an optical illusion, a strike disguised as a ball. It’s probably more or less 12-6 when it comes to break; a perfect rainbow from pitcher’s hand to catcher’s mitt. And if it’s an active player throwing it, you’re probably picturing Rich Hill.

In some ways, you’re not wrong. Rich Hill does throw a ton of curveballs, and first-pitch curveballs are in the strike zone far more often than hooks thrown on every other count. Hill isn’t the foremost practitioner of the art, however. Of the 359 pitchers who faced 100 batters and threw at least one curveball last year, Hill had the 41st-highest first-pitch curveball rate at 32.4%. He was just outside the top 10% of the league, not out front by a mile.

In fact, relative to how often he throws his curve, Hill is one of the least likely pitchers to throw it on the first pitch. On non-first-pitches, Hill threw it 44.4% of the time, 12 percentage points more often. Only 12 pitchers had a bigger negative differential when it came to starting batters off with curveballs relative to the rest of their pitch mix.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Buffalo Blue Jays? The Pittsburgh Blue Jays? The Biggio-Bichette-Vlad Jr. Traveling Sons of All-Stars and Motor Kings? One way or another Canada’s only Major League Baseball team will be the Toronto Blue Jays in name only during the 2020 season. That’s the upshot of a decision handed down by the Canadian government on Saturday, not because of anything the Blue Jays or MLB has done wrong, but because the United States has done such a poor job of containing the spread of COVID-19 that letting teams travel across the international border between the two countries has been deemed a public health risk. It’s a decision that’s left the Blue Jays and the rest of baseball scrambling for alternatives given that the team opens the season on July 24, with its home opener scheduled for July 29.

Already it was clear that one of the substantial logistical hurdles for any league attempting to play its games in the midst of a pandemic — the wisdom and morality of which are questionable at best, but a topic for another day — is the variation in local laws and mandates, particularly when it comes to quarantine rules and guidelines. Until late last week, the defending champion Nationals weren’t sure they could play at Nationals Park because of a directive for those in close contact with individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 to self-quarantine for 14 days, and a similar situation with respect to the Dodgers in Los Angeles is still being untangled.

But while those situations may tilt in favor of the teams — testifying either to the outsized importance of sports within our culture or to a misplacement of priorities (take your pick) — that’s not the case with regards to the Blue Jays. With the U.S. regularly breaking single-day records for new coronavirus cases, and the U.S.-Canada border already closed to nonessential travel through at least August 21, on Saturday the Canadian government denied the Blue Jays permission to play home games in Toronto, which the same day reported just 43 new cases of COVID-19 infections. The Blue Jays had previously received an exemption allowing them to host their summer camp at the Rogers Centre with players and staff operating under a strict “modified quarantine” in which they were collectively isolated at the facility, which includes a hotel. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the ways that the baseball of yesteryear was different from baseball today was the importance of batting average. With a pitching philosophy that envisioned lots and lots of balls being hit into play and no gauntlet of modern relief pitchers to face, far more at-bats ended with a ball being handled by a defensive player. In 2019, 63% of plate appearances ended with a ball being hit into play. In 1919, that figure was 81%. With half as many fieldable balls, it’s hardly a shock that league batting averages have declined. The effect would be even larger, too, but batting average on balls hit into play was higher in 2019 (.298) than in 1919 (.282).

Hitting .400 was never an easy feat, but it wasn’t some wild, once-in-a-lifetime occurrence when it did happen. The .400 mark has been eclipsed 34 times in major league history, give or take (the number varies depending on just what you consider a major league team in the wild world of 1870s baseball). Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941 and that was it, the last time a major leaguer hit .400 over a season. It’s more than just the lower league batting averages. Baseball’s .252 batting average in 2019 was still higher than in 17 seasons before 1941. Baseball has trended in a more competitive direction and as a league becomes more competitive, you generally expect the differences between players to shrink. That’s true for batting average, too. Just look at the simplest measure of dispersion, standard deviation:

The standard deviation has gotten smaller as time has progressed. Using this simple method, Ted Williams’s .406 in 1941 was 4.46 standard deviations better than the mean batting average of .262 (z-score). A z-score of 4.46 in 2019 only represents a .370 batting average. Nobody’s hit that mark recently, either, but .370 certainly doesn’t feel like anywhere near the same hurdle.

Since it’s the obvious next question, here are the best batting averages by Z-Score. Again, there are more robust ways to look at this, but we’re scrawling on envelope-backs, not landing astronauts on the moon:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Mets had quite a scare last week when Jacob deGrom left Tuesday’s intrasquad game after just one inning due to back tightness. Thankfully, an MRI taken on Thursday came back clean, and upon being cleared, the two-time reigning Cy Young winner threw a bullpen session on Friday, followed by a 60-pitch simulated game on Sunday. At this writing, he’s on track to make his Opening Day start against the Braves on July 24 in Queens, albeit with his targeted pitch count reduced from 100 to 85, but this close shave underscores the fact that there may be no ppitcher who’s more crucial to his teams chances for contention this season.

Intuitively, that makes sense. The 32-year-old deGrom is coming off of a season during which he led the NL in WAR (7.0) and strikeouts (255), ranked second in both ERA (2.43) and FIP (2.67), and third in innings (204). By the numbers, it may not have been as strong as his 2018 season, in which he led in ERA, FIP, and WAR, but for the second straight year, he ran away with the Cy Young, netting 29 out of 30 first-place votes. He’s projected to provide the Mets 2.1 WAR in this abbreviated season, a total 0.1 ahead of Max Scherzer in three more innings (76 to 73), and one surpassed by only the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole (2.4 in 79 innings). Here it should be noted that our innings projections are subject to manual adjustments based upon injury reports, and the news with regards to deGrom’s back was positive enough that we did not dial his total back.

Both Cole’s Yankees and deGrom’s Mets lost their respective rotation’s second-best pitchers — namely Luis Severino and Noah Syndergaard — to Tommy John surgery this spring, though the Yankees’ rotation still projects as the deeper one, with James Paxton (1.5 projected WAR) ahead of Marcus Stroman (1.1) among the remaining number two starters, and likewise Masahiro Tanaka (1.0) ahead of Rick Porcello or Steven Matz (both 0.7). In fact, the Yankees’ rotation’s 6.7 WAR tops our Depth Charts and thus our Positional Power Rankings, though they’re in a virtual tie with the Nationals and a hair ahead of the Rays (6.6). The Mets (5.5) rank ninth, 0.1 behind the Indians and 0.2 behind the Reds. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, noted fast boy Chris Taylor made an out at second base in a Dodgers intrasquad game. That’s hardly news; players run into outs all the time, particularly in games that don’t matter, while they get used to when they should and shouldn’t gamble. There was just one notable thing about this out, however:

#DontRunOnChico

Chris Taylor tried tagging up & got thrown out by the Dodgers' clubbie ?

(via @SportsNetLA)pic.twitter.com/kdei3zYdJl

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) July 12, 2020

That’s right; the fielder on the play wasn’t an active roster Dodger, or a minor leaguer, but clubhouse attendant Francisco “Chico” Herrera. As if that play wasn’t enough — gunning down a runner from deep left field in Dodger Stadium is no joke — he doubled up on impressive plays by doubling Gavin Lux off of first base after a spectacular outfield catch:

Chico does it AGAIN! ? pic.twitter.com/MoFCwQXeKS

— SportsNet LA (@SportsNetLA) July 15, 2020

Chicomania is in full swing in Chavez Ravine. Justin Turner wore a #LetChicoHit t-shirt for batting practice one day, and questions about Chico are a mainstay in Dodgers press conferences at this point. The excitement led play-by-play announcer Joe Davis to ask for a statistical assist:

Just chatted w/ @CespedesBBQ, who posed this question: would the Dodgers make the playoffs w/ Chico in LF? I would love to see an actual analytical breakdown, @fangraphs.

— Joe Davis (@Joe_Davis) July 16, 2020

Read the rest of this entry »

Brent Strom had a better playing career than he likes to give himself credit for. His numbers are admittedly nondescript, but he did toss 501 big-league innings and throw 16 complete games, three of which were shutouts. Pitching for the New York Mets, Cleveland Indians, and San Diego Padres, the now-71-year-old southpaw logged a respectable 3.95 ERA over parts of five seasons.

My invitation to revisit his MLB debut — with the Mets on July 31, 1972 — yielded both entertaining anecdotes and a healthy dose of self-deprecation. Now in his seventh season as the pitching coach for the Houston Astros, Strom is equal parts gruff and engaging as a storyteller.

Against the Montreal Expos on that particular night, Strom was stellar. He allowed just two hits and a pair of runs — only one of them earned —over six-and-two thirds innings. Strom fanned seven, and despite departing with a lead settled for a non-decision.

His high school coach was on hand to see it.

“Bernie Flaherty, who is since deceased, had promised that if I made it to the big leagues he would be there for my first game,” Strom told me. “He flew from San Diego to New York to watch me pitch against the Expos that night, which was pretty cool. At least I didn’t disappoint him that game.”

Another notable from back home was there as well, and unlike Flaherty he wasn’t watching from the stands. He was calling balls and strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

It wasn’t too long ago — just shy of two years, in fact — that Tyler White appeared to have found his spot in the majors, emerging as the hottest hitter on a 103-win juggernaut Astros team. Now, the 29-year-old first baseman is heading to the Korea Baseball Organization to join the SK Wyverns, a decision that makes sense given that he both couldn’t find space in any team’s 60-player pool and that there’s no minor league season. In joining the struggling Wyverns, he’ll be bucking a league-wide trend, as theirs will be the only lineup featuring two foreign-born players.

The current iteration of the KBO roster rules allows teams to carry three foreign-born players, a maximum of two of whom can be pitchers; prior to 2014, the maximum was two. This year, every team in the league has gone with two foreign-born pitchers and one hitter, with the Wyverns using Nick Kingham 킹엄 and Ricardo Pinto 핀토 in their rotation and Jamie Romak 로맥 as their first baseman. As I noted on May 22, however, Kingham made just two starts before suffering an elbow injury of an unspecified nature (getting to the bottom of KBO injuries is a challenge). While initial reports suggested that he might miss only a couple of starts, he didn’t even return to playing catch until late June, and on July 2, the team waived him, opening up a spot for another foreign-born player.

The recent history of lineups with two foreign-born players is a short one. Last year, the Samsung Lions featured Darin Ruf 러프 as their regular first baseman and occasional designated hitter, with outfielder Mac Williamson 윌리엄슨 joining the team in midseason. Because of a rule in place at the time, the team was only allowed to use only two foreign-born players in a game, so one of them had to sit whenever Deck McGuire 맥과이어 or Ben Lively 라이블리 (who replaced McGuire shortly after Williamson arrived) started. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a question that you, the fan, might have in a few weeks: My team is 4-8. Is it time to get worried? In a regular 162-game season, that’s not exactly a puzzle: nope! Things are fine, my friend. Sip a frozen drink, or crack open a bag of chips, or whatever it is that you do to relax. Maybe watch a baseball game!

In a 60-game season, things will feel more consequential. That’s convenient, because they’ll also be more consequential. There’s a saying that you can’t make the playoffs in your first month, but you can miss them. This year, that’s out the window. Start out 9-3, and you’re feeling pretty good. Start 3-9, and it’s time to start booking remote cabins for your October socially-distanced vacation.

I wanted to be a little more quantitative than “it’s important to start well.” My first thought was: let’s fire up the Playoff Odds Calculator (an arcane table in David Appelman’s basement that spits out the odds of each team making the playoffs after he mutters some incantations) and give a team a hot start to see what it does to their odds. After that, we can fire up the ZiPS-ulator (a sentient robot living in Dan Szymborski’s attic) and compare.

There’s a problem with that plan, though: it depends on the messy vagaries of our estimation of a team’s strength. A 4-8 start is less painful for the Dodgers than the Diamondbacks because we think the Dodgers are better. The same goes, to a varying extent, for every team in baseball. The schedule matters, but so do our idiosyncratic views on team talent.

Instead, I wanted to create a true neutral scenario, one that you can apply in a general way without specifically digging into what we think of your team. I built a bubble baseball universe that consists of only a single five-team division. Each team has the exact same talent level, and there’s no home field advantage. That means that a 162-game season would, on average, look like this:

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I conclude my series discussing each team’s 60-man player pool with a focus on prospects. Previous installments of these rundowns, including potentially relevant context for discussion, can be found here:

AL East and Intro
NL East
AL Central
NL Central
NL West

Updating Previously-Covered Teams

A few teams have made significant player pool additions that merit discussion before I get to the AL West. Boston added Tanner Houck, Bryan Mata, Jay Groome, Jarren Duran and Jeter Downs to their pool. The Sox need to make 40-man decisions on all three of the pitchers on that list this offseason. Houck (who might debut this year) and Mata are virtual locks to be added to the 40, while Groome still hasn’t thrown very much as a pro and is far less certain. The good news for Boston (and the bad news for the scouting industry) is that even if Groome looks great, there’s no way for other teams’ scouts to know since they have no access to Sox camp. It’d take a rebuilding team with 40-man space for a developmental dart throw, led by decision-makers previously enamored with Groome (which might be tough to find since prospective Rule 5 picks are evaluated by pro departments, which haven’t seen much of him) to even consider taking someone like that and stuffing them on next year’s active roster. Downs and Duran have 2021 roster timelines.

The Mets also put several more pitching prospects in their pool: Thomas Szapucki, Jordan Humphreys, Franklyn Kilomé, and Matt Blackham. Szapucki, Humphreys and Kilomé are all TJ survivors who are on the 40-man and thus are a good bet to debut at some point this summer, potentially up for good in September. Blackham wasn’t on the Mets prospect list but sat 93-95 and touched 97 last year, and has 30-grade command. The Mets campsite hitters remain packed with veteran utility types more so than prospects.

I’ve mentioned a of couple teams as having a puncher’s chance to compete for postseason berths, in part because they’re in position to get unexpected, unusually strong performance from their bullpens. The White Sox late player pool additions — oft-injured Jacob Lindgren, Ryan Burr, former top 100 prospect Zack Burdi, new draft pick Garrett Crochet, and 2019 breakout guy Jonathan Stiever — are all candidates to pop and contribute to such a cause this year. Chicago also added Blake Rutherford, Luis Gonzalez and Micker Adolfo to their pool. I have low-end platoon grades on Rutherford (who might belong in a low-ball/high-ball platoon rather than a left/right one) and Gonzalez at this point, while it’s clear the org prioritized experimenting with Yermin Mercedes over just DH’ing Adolfo during camp, which I think is instructive for how they should be ordered on the club’s prospect list. Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Guyer announced his retirement last week, ending a career that was undeniably unique. A platoon outfielder for the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cleveland Indians from 2011-2018, the 34-year-old University of Virginia product has the highest hit by pitch rate in big-league history. All told, Guyer was plunked 85 times in just 1,487 plate appearances.

Getting drilled wasn’t his lone skill. A creditable defender with a reliable right-handed bat, Guyer slashed .274/.376/.449 against lefties, and his consummate-gamer personae made him an asset in the clubhouse. Overall, he logged a .727 OPS with 32 home runs (the first of which his wife heard on the radio in a stadium parking lot). A fifth-round pick by the Chicago Cubs in 2007, Guyer went on to have some especially-memorable moments with Cleveland in the 2016 World Series.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe your career?

Brandon Guyer: “First of all, I feel very fortunate to have played seven seasons in the big leagues. When I was thinking about retirement, that brought me back to where it all started, Little League and then the whole journey. If someone would have told me what would happen with my baseball career, I wouldn’t have believed them. All of the ups and downs, the injuries… obviously, my goal would have been 20 seasons and being an All-Star every year, but I’m proud of the career I had. My main goal all along was to make the absolute most of my potential, and I did everything in my power to do that. I left it all on the field.”

Laurila: How do you think most fans will remember you?

Guyer: “Probably as la piñata. And I don’t know if they will, but I hope fans remember me as a guy that played hard, played the game the right way, and carried himself the right way off the field. Those are all things I prided myself on.”

Laurila: When I asked you about it four years ago, you told me there wasn’t an art to getting hit by pitches. Now that you’re no longer playing, is your answer any different? Read the rest of this entry »