Sometimes the math just works out perfectly. Coming into today, our fictional OOTP Brewers have played exactly one third of their season. At 32-22, we’re atop the NL Central by four games, an outcome I would have happily accepted before the season started. Let’s take a look at how we got here before considering our next steps.

First, let’s talk NL Central. The division isn’t the four-way race that many pundits expected before the year began. In fact, the Cardinals have faded more or less completely out of contention:

The true surprise in the division is the Pirates. Keyed by Chris Archer and Joe Musgrove, they’ve allowed the fourth-fewest runs against in the league. On the offensive side, Josh Bell is having a solid year; his 128 wRC+ and 17 home runs pace the team. But despite the hot start, problem spots remain: the team is 11th in the NL in overall wOBA, as well as 11th in FIP. It isn’t hard to imagine the run-scoring numbers moving down to match the peripherals, which would leave the Pirates on the fringes of the playoff chase. Read the rest of this entry »

The defending champion Doosan Bears are merely in third place in the Korea Baseball Organization standings, but through the season’s first three weeks, nobody in the league has been hotter than their designated hitter, Jose Miguel Fernandez 페르난데스. Through Sunday’s games, the 32-year-old Cuban defector is batting .500/.531/.764, leading the league in the first two categories as well as wRC+ (240, via Statiz) and trailing Roberto Ramos 라모스 by a mere three points in slugging percentage. His performance has led the Bears’ powerhouse offense, which alas had trouble papering over the team’s pitching issues.

When you’re hitting .500, everything is by definition hot streak, but Fernandez closed the past week in exceptional fashion even as the Bears did not. After going hitless for just the second time all year on May 20 against the NC Dinos, he rebounded to go 3-for-4 with an RBI in a 12-6 loss the next day, then 3-for-4 with a double, a homer, and six RBI in a 12-7 win over the Samsung Lions on Friday. He followed that up with two more multi-hit games against the Lions, first a 4-for-5 performance that included a solo homer (his fourth) in a 10-6 win on Saturday, then a 2-for-4 showing in a 13-0 loss on Sunday. That’s a 12-for-17 spree, and 12 multi-hit games so far this season, including three apiece of the three- and four-hit varieties. Whew.

Known more for his bat-to-ball skills than his raw power, Fernandez has never homered more than 17 times in a season. But thus far in 2020, the lefty swinger — who lists at 5-foot-10, 185-pounds — has been launching some titanic blasts. Here’s his first homer of the year, off the KT Wiz’s Min Kim 김민 on May 10:

Don't know that you guys are keeping track but Jose Miguel Fernandez has another multi-hit game on his hands. Currently 3-3 on the day with this 3 run shot. His 1st HR of 2020. #KBO #DoosanBears pic.twitter.com/1f551qrQgQ

— KBO Collections ? (@kbocollections) May 10, 2020

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Scott Heineman has become increasingly interested in the mechanics of his swing. That said, the 27-year-old Texas Rangers outfielder isn’t married to the technical aspects of his craft. Nor is his approach what one could call cookie-cutter. That was crystal clear when I asked him the ‘art or science?’ question.

“I’d say hitting is more of an art,” Heineman expressed last Sunday. “I’m going to do what’s most comfortable for me. For instance, I’m not going to go out there and imitate Paul Goldschmidt. That’s what works for him — that stance — but I’ve tried it in the cage and it doesn’t work for me. That said, he does things I really like. I guess I could say I’m an artist painting my own picture, and at the same time looking at all the other pieces in the gallery. I’m seeing how they use colors, and whatnot, and putting parts of that into my own art. That’s what I’m doing with hitting.”

Heineman’s portfolio is somewhat spotty. Pointedly bland in last year’s cup of coffee — a .679 OPS in 85 big-league PAs — he’s otherwise made a good impression down on the farm. Heineman’s right-handed stroke has produced a snappy .303/.378/.475 slash line over four minor-league seasons. Ever the realist, he recognizes that those numbers aren’t going to translate to the big-league level if he doesn’t study the masters. Moreover, Goldschmidt isn’t the only bopper whose palette he’s perused. Read the rest of this entry »

After the initial sugar rush of watching live KBO baseball faded, I’ve settled into a comfortable routine. While I work and relax throughout the day, I’ll watch some KBO action from the night before, either the English language feature game or a Twitch rebroadcast in Korean. In that way, I soak in the atmosphere of baseball almost by osmosis, sometimes focusing closely on a play but sometimes just listening to the sound of it.

At some point, however, I started to get a sense of déjà vu. Hey, that Ah-Seop Son guy is on base again. Hey, did he walk? That was a nice at-bat there, but haven’t I seen this before? It turns out that yeah, that was the case. Through 61 plate appearances in 2020, Son has drawn 14 walks. That’s a cool 23% walk rate. I wasn’t just imagining things — 14 games, 14 walks. He truly is just walking all the time.

Some quick backup before we cover what’s going on this season: Son has been a mainstay in the Giants lineup for the last decade. Since 2010, his worst wRC+ was a 112 showing in 2019, with a 151 wRC+ effort in 2014 his best overall year. For the most part, he’s been a metronomic presence at the top of the lineup, as his career stats attest — he’s a career .323/.395/.471 hitter, which works out to a 134 wRC+. That’s something like career Will Clark — relative to a weaker competition level, of course.

That career .401 OBP says a lot about his on-base prowess, and indeed, Son’s career walk rate is a robust 11.3%. He’s never been much of a slugger, but the combination of gap power, 20-homer pop at his (and the league offensive environment’s) peak, and an all-fields, line-drive approach have made opposing pitchers careful around the plate, and he’s been willing to take his walks. Read the rest of this entry »

If the NC Dinos are the Korea Baseball Organization’s hottest team — and at 12-2, with a three-game lead over the second-place LG Twins, that’s the case — then the SK Wyverns are its coldest. Through Friday, they’ve gone 2-12, a skid that includes a 10-game losing streak, one game shy of the longest in franchise history.

Based in Incheon, South Korea’s third-largest city after Seoul and Busan, the Wyverns — those are two-legged dragons, in case you’ve forgotten — have been particularly successful in the past couple of years, finishing second in the regular season standings twice in a row. After going 78-65-1 in 2018 under former major league manager Trey Hillman, they beat the Nexen (now Kiwoom) Heroes three games to two in the best-of-five Playoff Series, then beat the Doosan Bears four games to two in the best-of-seven Korean Series for their first championship since 2010 and fourth since joining the league in 2000. Last year, they went 88-55-1 but finished tied with the Bears, that after holding a 7 1/2-game advantage over them as late as August 24. Since the Bears held a 9-7 advantage in head-to-head competition, they won first place and automatically advanced to the Korean Series, while the Wyverns suffered a three-game sweep at the hands of the Heroes in the Semi-Playoff Series.

Per Dan Szymborski’s rough KBO projections, the Wyverns were forecast to be the league’s third-best team behind the Heroes and Bears, with a 17.0% chance of finishing first and an 83.3% chance of making the playoffs. Instead, after splitting their first two games against the Hanhwa Eagles, they lost 10 straight: the series rubber match against the Eagles, then two to the Lotte Giants and three to the LG Twins (both on the road), three to the Dinos at home, and the series opener agains the Heroes in Seoul. They finally got off the schneid by beating the Heroes on Wednesday, 5-3, then lost to them again on Thursday, a game in which they blew a 5-0 lead and suffered this final indignity, a walk-off infield single that deflected off shortstop Sung-hyun Kim 김성현. Read the rest of this entry »

Reggie Jefferson played alongside some elite hitters in a career that spanned the 1991-1999 seasons. His teammates included the likes of Albert Belle, Nomar Garciaparra, Ken Griffey Jr, Edgar Martinez, and Mo Vaughn. Jefferson was no slouch himself. A left-handed hitter who most often platooned at DH, Jefferson slashed .300/.349/.474 with a 110 wRC+.

Jefferson broke into the big-leagues with the Cincinnati Reds as a switch-hitter. A cup of coffee later, he joined the Cleveland Indians and continued swinging from both sides. He then scrapped the practice after being dealt to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for Omar Vizquel. His best, and most-turbulent, seasons came in his five-year stint with the Red Sox. In 1996, Jefferson batted .347 with a 140 wRC+. In 1999, a fractious relationship with Boston manager Jimy Williams led to an aggrieved exit, which was followed by a year abroad with NPB’s Seibu Lions.

Upon returning from Japan, Jefferson went on to earn a business degree from the University of South Florida. He’s now a player agent for Reynolds Sports.

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David Laurila: Where did you first learn to hit?

Reggie Jefferson: “My father played in semi-pro leagues. I’m from Tallahassee, Florida, and baseball was really big in the black community when I was a young kid. I remember him playing when I was four or five, and then he went straight into managing the team. Every Saturday I would go watch those guys play; he would have me all over these small towns, watching baseball. That’s really how I learned. Like most hitters, it just came to me naturally. There aren’t too many guys that you can teach to hit.”

Laurila: Did you grow up batting right-handed or left-handed?

Jefferson: “Left-handed, but it’s a funny story. No one in my family had ever been left-handed, and the first glove my dad bought me was actually for a right-handed thrower. I remember being in the yard, playing catch right-handed. I was kind of ambidextrous, so my dad never picked up on it. In time, I realized that I did things better with my left hand, so I played left-handed and became a left-handed hitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at Mike Trout‘s dominance and how his first eight years stack up compared to the best 10-year periods in history, both by WAR and by offense alone. We’ve done the same on the pitching side, emphasizing Clayton Kershaw’s great run over the last decade-plus. Now, we’ll take the opportunity to do the same at individual positions, starting at first base. The position is known as a power-hitting position, though the reigning leader over the past 10 years has merely good thump. Joey Votto has hit over 30 homers in a season just twice in his career and his 284 long balls aren’t very high up on the all-time leaderboard. Rather, it’s Votto’s high batting average and ability to get on base with a great walk rate that have separated him from his peers and caused him to put up a 151 wRC+ since he started in Cincinnati back in 2007.

Votto’s 48.1 WAR over the last 10 years is the best in the majors among first baseman, though it isn’t his best 10-year period. Here’s how the top-three in 10-year WAR at first base has looked over the last decade:

Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve found in my recent attempts to write about the Korea Baseball Organization, gathering statistics often requires a cross-site scramble, and historical information and context isn’t easy to come by. With that in mind, and particularly with the wide year-to-year fluctuation in that league’s home run rate occurring at the same time that balls have been soaring out of the park at record rates here in the States, I thought it would be worthwhile to pull together some quick comparisons to the trends we’ve seen in MLB.

First, let’s take a look at the two leagues’ run scoring since the KBO’s inception in 1982:

Perhaps understandably given its comparatively recent arrival, the KBO has been the more volatile of the two leagues in terms of scoring rates, with the higher peak (5.62 runs per game in 2014, to MLB’s max of 5.14 in 2000), the lower valley (3.67 runs per game in 1986, to MLB’s low of 4.07 runs per game in 2014), and the wider standard deviation (0.53 to 0.29). Note that the KBO’s peak and MLB’s nadir coincide with that aforementioned 2014 season, and that the two leagues are usually significantly far apart; the annual average, in terms of absolute value, is 0.49 runs. Read the rest of this entry »

Gio González has a very particular set of skills. No, it’s not rescuing his kidnapped daughter — it’s something far more useful for baseball. Or, it was — until 2020. González, and Steven Matz as well, are simply otherworldly when it comes out to striking out opposing pitchers.

That probably seems weird to you, because those guys aren’t exactly prolific strikeout artists. Take a look at the top 10 pitchers in pitcher strikeout rate (since 2015, minimum 100 PA):

That’s eight pitchers with high-octane, face-melting stuff…and González and Matz hanging out in rarefied air. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks have passed since the last round of questions, so I am once again asking you to weigh in on the shape and size of the potential 2020 baseball season. Thanks in advance for your help in providing these responses. Read the rest of this entry »