As rumors of the various permutations of Mookie Betts trades float around the ether, it’s worth taking a closer look at the Dodgers’ rotation, mainly because of the possibility that David Price is included in what would become an even bigger blockbuster than a “simple” trade of one of the majors’ top five players. Despite losing both Hyun-Jin Ryu and Rich Hill in free agency, the Dodgers don’t lack for options to start, many of them good ones. But between inexperience and injury histories, those options also offer a great deal of uncertainty, and it’s not at all clear that the 34-year-old Price, whose performance has declined of late and who comes with his own recent spate of health woes, helps all that much.

Last year, the Dodgers had by far the NL’s best rotation in terms of ERA and FIP, though they finished behind the Nationals — whose starters ranked second in both categories — in WAR, because the Washington workhorses threw significantly more innings:

By itself, the Dodgers’ lower innings total doesn’t matter, but the loss of Ryu, whose 182.2 innings were the most by any Los Angeles starter since 2015, leaves the team with only three pitchers who threw at least 100 innings last year, namely Walker Buehler (30 starts, 182.1 innings), Clayton Kershaw (28 starts, 178.1 innings), and Kenta Maeda (26 starts, 153.2 innings), the last of whom spent all of September in the bullpen and has been mentioned in at least one version of the Betts trade. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday afternoon, the Mariners announced a four-year contract extension for Marco Gonzales with a guarantee of $30 million. This new deal will cover the 2021–2024 seasons, with a club option for a fifth year that could bring the total value of the deal to $45 million. Because he signed an unorthodox contract extension in 2018 — Gonzales signed to avoid an unpleasant service time issue inherited by the Mariners — this new deal will cover all three of his arbitration years and potentially two free agent years.

With Gonzales’ $5 million 2021 salary on the books, the Mariners have just over $50 million in committed salary next year. That’s the season when the Mariners have been aiming to transition out of their soft rebuild phase. By then, Jarred Kelenic, Logan Gilbert, and possibly even Julio Rodriguez could all have graduated to the majors and the Mariners should have a ton of room to add salary. Signing Gonzales to an affordable contract now locks in his salary figures during his arbitration years, giving Seattle some cost certainty during the seasons where they’ve indicated they plan to spend more.

It’s likely the framework for Gonzales’s extension was built on the flurry of four-year extensions handed out to a number of starting pitchers last offseason. Aaron Nola, Luis Severino, Blake Snell, Kyle Hendricks, and German Márquez all signed four-year pacts with their respective teams prior to the season starting. The table below lists the six pitchers with their age, service time, and cumulative performance prior to signing their extension:

Read the rest of this entry »

San Diego Padres right-hander Chris Paddack had a pretty good first major league season. He struck out 153 hitters in 140.2 innings and posted a 0.98 WHIP with a 3.33 ERA and a 3.95 FIP. Amazingly, he did it with basically two pitches: a four-seam fastball and a changeup. Paddack also has a curveball that he has often tinkered with, but its use never eclipsed 15% in any count. It mainly appeared as the first pitch of the at-bat or when he was ahead in the count. Despite being able to keep hitters under control with two options for most of last season, one of the multiple curveball variations Paddack resorted to works best, both statistically and as an ideal fit with his four-seam and changeup.

Here’s a visual summary of Paddack’s three pitches in an isolated overlay example, which accounts for the typical location of each pitch last season:

Paddack has a well-designed, pure backspinning four-seam fastball with a 12:50 spin direction and nearly 100% spin efficiency. In terms of whiffs, the pitch was best when Paddack kept it high in the zone. When it came to contact, the four-seamer didn’t really have an advantageous location, with the exception of keeping the pitch out of the middle of the strike zone. Paddack held hitters to a .276 wOBA and demonstrated good control of the pitch as evidenced by his 0.18 BB/K-rate. Read the rest of this entry »

At the very start of Curtis Granderson’s career, he was expected to make a plane with fellow Tigers prospects Ryan Raburn and Roberto Novoa. According to the Detroit Free Press, only Raburn made the flight in time; Granderson and Novoa got hosed by security and had to truck it four hours to Detroit all the way from Erie, driving around the big lake they have there, and finally arriving at Comerica Park. Granderson would have driven across Lake Erie if he could have, but as it were, he started his big league career a day late, and yet still found a way to get there in time. The perfect start to a major league run of making adjustments.

Through a 16-year career, which Granderson announced was over last Friday, expectations are going to shift. Granderson was expected to never commit an error, because he didn’t for the first 151 games he played. In the late 2000s, he was expected to be among the league leader in triples. By the mid-2010s, with age chewing up his knees, those expectations faded.

With his uniform, his output, and the sport itself changing over a decade and a half, Granderson always found a way to make an impact, even when he was 33 and in the first year of his four-year deal with the Mets: He was only good for a 98 wRC+ in 245 PA, but did see more pitches per plate appearance than anyone else on the roster. Did it help? Maybe not directly, but he probably tired a pitcher or two out and forced him to make a mistake with the next guy. Why not?

…

Autumn in Milwaukee is a lot like autumn anywhere else in the universe. The leaves change color. The air grows cooler. The sky flashes a rainbow of ripened hues as the sun rises and sets. Occasionally, there is playoff baseball to speak of. And Granderson was able to get there without missing a flight.

By early fall of 2018, Granderson was part of a purge of veteran talent from the Blue Jays locker room as the team exploded its roster in an attempt to bring in new, young talent. He had three All-Star appearances, a couple of MVP nods, a Silver Slugger, and a career of offensive accolades behind him, but he arrived in Milwaukee for the last month of the regular season with a job to do. At this point in his career, that job was to take pitches, be available, and show these other guys how a playoff run is done. He may not have led the league in triples anymore (he hit a combined 36 from 2007-08 and a combined five from 2017-18), and he had committed 31 errors up to this point (though he wouldn’t commit anymore for the rest of his major league career), but Granderson still knew how to take a pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

The offseason is a time for dreaming, for picturing your team getting better. Anyone could sign Gerrit Cole or Anthony Rendon. Anyone could trade for Mookie Betts. The world is everyone’s oyster.

But it never lasts, naturally. The Yankees sign Cole, and the superposition of every team potentially having Cole at the front of the rotation collapses. The Angels sign Rendon and the Twins sign Josh Donaldson, and third base becomes a weakness instead of being one signature away from a strength.

With the free agency market now winding down (the top remaining free agent is probably Yasiel Puig), rosters feel pretty solidified. That doesn’t mean that Kris Bryant, Francisco Lindor, or Nolan Arenado can’t headline a trade tomorrow and alter some team’s fate. But it does mean that for the most part, what you see is what you get. Read the rest of this entry »

Jake Rogers is regarded as a strong defender who has issues with the stick. Ten months ago, Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel wrote that the Detroit Tigers prospect, has “a shot to approach the low offensive bar at the catcher position, [but] his glove alone makes him a high-probability big leaguer.” Not much has changed. Rogers proceeded to log a .779 OPS in Triple-A, then slash .125/.222/.259 after receiving his first-ever call-up in late July. Most alarmingly, he fanned 130 times in 431 plate appearances between three levels.

Rogers’s efforts to improve his offensive game were what I had in mind when I approached him in the Tigers clubhouse last August. And while we did we did address that, a few tangential topics turned out to be more captivating. We’ll get to those after touching on postural adjustments.

“A big thing has been that my hips are a little up, and I want to get them back to level,” Rogers told me. “That way I can get my swing more on plane and cover more pitches. Right now, when I get to toe-touch my head is back, which causes my hips to be at an upward angle. I need to get more balanced, with my hips and shoulders both level.”

The former Tulane Green Wave standout had also lowered his hands a few inches, and worked to keep to his head still. What goes on between the ears is likewise important. With that in mind, I asked the 24-year-old if he ever finds himself thinking like a catcher in the batter’s box. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a relatively quiet winter for Jerry Dipoto and the Mariners. Seemingly content to let their youngsters play (or develop in the minors), the frantic wheeling and dealing that we had become accustomed to in offseasons past has subsided this year. With their eyes set on 2021, there hasn’t been much of a need to add to their roster. But while most of their key positions are manned by players who, in an ideal world, will form the core of the competitive roster next year, the bullpen is filled with a number of question marks. The Mariners addressed that concern by signing Yoshihisa Hirano to a one-year contract yesterday.

The deal guarantees $1.6 million to the pitcher with a number of performance bonuses based on appearances and games finished. The most interesting wrinkle to his contract comes in the form of a $250,000 bonus that kicks in each time he’s traded. This “Jerry Dipoto clause” is a savvy inclusion for the veteran reliever who will likely be shopped around near the trade deadline if he’s any good at all.

After an 11-year career in Japan, Hirano made the jump to the States in 2018. In two seasons with the Diamondbacks, he was a decent option towards the back end of the bullpen. Last year, he improved his strikeout rate by almost four points but saw his FIP jump over four due to an increase in his home run rate. Through August 12, he had actually posted a 3.30 FIP with just three home runs allowed, but a nasty two-game stretch on August 14 and 16 led to a brief stint on the Injured List with elbow inflammation. He returned in mid-September, but continued to struggle, giving up four more home runs in his nine appearances after August 12. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re not scraping the bottom of the free agent barrel quite yet. Yasiel Puig remains available, as do a number of lesser but still valuable big league types, like Collin McHugh, Brian Dozier, and Kevin Pillar. We are at the point in the winter, however, when we can start filing a few of the lesser signings in a joint roundup. The special on this particular menu is middle relievers fleeing the Cubs for big league deals with NL Central rivals — come for the Pedro Strop news, stay for the briefing on David Phelps. Or vice versa; do as you please.

Pedro Strop — Cincinnati, one year, $1.825 million, up to $3.5 million with incentives

Many moons ago, when Strop was toiling away in the Rockies farm system, he led the Northwest League in strikeouts. That’s not normally the kind of achievement that merits acknowledgement all these years later, except for the fact that he did so as a hitter (and to be fair, he was in good company; future All-Star Michael Saunders finished second in that category). Nonetheless, 86 strikeouts in 247 plate appearances marked the end of his time as an infielder. Colorado tried him on the bump the following spring, and after striking out 35 hitters in his first 26 minor league innings, he was on his way to bigger and better things.

Now 34, and with a ring and almost $30 million in the bank, Strop is coming off of his worst season in nearly a decade. Over 50 games and 41 innings, he posted a pedestrian 4.97 ERA with a 4.53 FIP, snapping a string of six consecutive sub-3.00 ERA campaigns. Never a control specialist, his 11.2% walk rate was the highest mark he’d permitted since 2012. The bigger problem, though, was the homers. He surrendered six of them, a career high, and more than double his career HR/9 rate. Alongside, Strop’s average fastball dropped a tick and a half relative to career norms and he enticed fewer whiffs with both his fastball and the slider that he’s long relied on as an out pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Szymborski recently posted the 2020 ZiPS projections for the Seattle Mariners. The system forecasts lefty Marco Gonzales to be the best pitcher on Seattle’s staff. That should come as no surprise considering that Gonzales has been far and away the best arm the Mariners have had to offer lately. According to ZiPS, he’s expected to throw at least 170 innings in 2020 and post a 4.26 ERA (4.12 FIP) with a WAR of 2.6. Despite his strong showings in 2018 and 2019, ZiPS indicates a fair amount of regression for Gonzales this coming season.

After two straight seasons of 3-plus WAR, can we expect a pitcher who throws two fastballs that barely reach 90 mph to maintain that level of performance? Despite his ability to spread his arsenal out, especially when he’s ahead of the hitter, there is a change to Gonzales’ pitch selection that could facilitate another impressive season for the 27-year-old former 19th-overall draft pick.

Gonzales threw five different pitches in 2019: a sinker, cutter, a fading changeup, a sweeping, slurve-ish curveball, and a four-seamer, all with above-average command:

As you can see, Gonzales throws three different fastball variations. His traditional cutter works just fine and by FIP, it was his best pitch in 2019. Its 11:40 spin direction facilitates little sweep but a decent amount of rise. Read the rest of this entry »

Joey Gallo cracked the code in 2019. He recorded his highest major league wRC+ (by far), his highest WAR total (in only half a season!), his highest walk rate, and his highest isolated power. Before fracturing his wrist in July, he looked like a second-tier MVP candidate. It was a clear step forward for a player who was already an above-average major leaguer.

It wasn’t all cotton candy and lollipops. His strikeout rate ticked up, from a yikes-gross-cover-your-eyes 35.9% to a seek-shelter-this-is-not-a-drill 38.4%. Gallo struck out nearly as many times, in under 300 plate appearances, as Michael Brantley has in nearly 1200 PA over the last two years. But despite the eye-popping strikeout rate, the overall package made Gallo one of the most fearsome hitters in baseball.

What did Gallo change to turbo-boost his game? He started swinging less. That’s not all he did, but it’s a lot of it. And for someone like Gallo, that makes a ton of sense. He has what Eric and Kiley call a grooved swing — his swing rides a consistent path, which makes it hard to adjust to pitches away from his preferred target area, and given how much damage he does when he connects, pitchers are doing their utmost to avoid that target area.

To wit: in 2019, 39.9% of the pitches Gallo saw were in the strike zone, a rate that would have been 30th-lowest in baseball if he had enough plate appearances to qualify. In 2018, it was even more severe; his 38.1% zone rate was fifth-lowest in baseball. In 2017, his 36.1% zone rate was the lowest in the majors. Read the rest of this entry »