The Red Sox parting ways with Dave Dombrowski — last night’s announcement came at the bewitching hour — is somewhat surprising. Then again, it really isn’t. Questions about his future have been circulating for a few months, and while a death knell has yet to sound on Boston’s season, any hopes of a postseason berth are now on life support. Last October is but a memory, and as the saying goes, “What have you done for me lately?”

To say it’s been a disappointing season for the defending World Series champions would be an understatement. But that’s only part of the reason Dombrowski, the team’s president of baseball operations since August 2015, was let go. What matters is the future, and much as when Ben Cherington was jettisoned four years ago, the time had come for new leadership. For now, assistant GMs Brian O’Halloran, Eddie Romero Jr., and Zack Scott, along with Senior Vice President Raquel Ferreira, are expected to fill that role on an interim basis.

The extent to which Dombrowski and Red Sox ownership were no longer on the same page is unknown as of this moment. More may be learned when the involved parties address the media (though the team has elected not to hold a press conference regarding the decision), but even then questions will remain unanswered. In all likelihood, we’ll be left to speculate as to whether loggerheads had been reached with the important near-term personnel decisions that will shape the team’s future. Based on his track record, Dombrowski would presumably be averse to anything resembling a rebuild, while his two predecessors — Cherington and Theo Epstein — placed a high premium on player development and building from within. That divergence is reflected in Boston’s farm system rankings; the Red Sox system is currently dead last. Read the rest of this entry »

For the most part, a pitcher’s FIP is going to line up pretty well with his ERA over the course of a season or a career. There are 240 starting pitchers with at least 1,000 innings over the last 25 years and all but seven of them have a FIP within half a run of their ERA. Even over the course of an individual season, we typically see most pitchers with an ERA and a FIP around the same mark. Over the last 25 seasons covering more than 3,500 individual pitching seasons of at least 100 innings, the r-squared is .61. This season, there are over 100 pitchers with at least 100 innings; the graph below shows their FIPs and ERAs (all stats are through September 5):

With the exception of Antonio Senzatela way up top, we see a pretty distinct pattern moving up and to the right. Within this cluster of players, there isn’t a perfect relationship. A perfect relationship would make one of the stats duplicative and useless. ERA and FIP both measure results on the field, with ERA accounting for the players who cross home plate after getting on base when the pitcher was on the mound (and the trip home wasn’t made possible by an error), while FIP measures strikeouts, walks, and homers. Every year, a good number of pitchers have an ERA higher than their FIP and vice versa. As far as explaining the difference between the two numbers using readily available statistics goes, BABIP and left-on-base percentage explain much of the gap between the two numbers.

That LOB% would explain some of the gap makes a lot of sense given that stranding more runners than expected is going to keep a pitcher’s runs allowed (ERA) lower than his general performance (FIP). We can see the relationship between ERA-FIP and LOB% for pitchers this season below:

Without delving into whether there’s a skill involved in stranding runners (though better pitchers tend to have higher LOB% due to just being better at getting outs generally), we can see that the more runners stranded and the higher the LOB%, the more likely it is that a pitcher’s ERA is going to be lower than his FIP. The relationship over the past 25 years for individual seasons is stronger than the one above, with an r-squared of .56, but even over just one season, the pattern is apparent. What we are dealing with above is sequencing and what happens when runners are on base compared to overall performance. Generally speaking, pitcher’s perform similarly with runners on base and with the bases empty, with a slight increase in FIP for everyone with runners on base:

This isn’t to say that some pitchers aren’t worse pitching from the stretch, or that some pitchers don’t change their strategy to more effectively get batters out with runners on base. But generally speaking, pitchers perform a little bit worse with runners on base, though in a fairly uniform pattern as seen in the graph above. Unless you are Doug Davis, Scott Kazmir, Jeff Suppan, or Iván Nova, then with runners on base, you were within half a run with runners on base or worse.

We’ll get back to LOB% in a minute, but first, we should address BABIP. Here’s the relationship between BABIP and the difference between ERA and FIP:

The relationship isn’t as strong as LOB%, but with an r-squared of .41 this season, we can still see a pattern. Over 25 years of individual seasons, the r-squared is .52, nearly the same as LOB% over the same time. While we know that pitchers exert some control over the quality of their contact, over 90% of pitchers with at least 1,000 innings since 1995 are between .270 and .310, and 65% of pitchers are between .285 and .305 (around 10 hits per year at the edges), so even at the extremes we are talking about maybe three or four extra hits per month. That’s not nothing, but over long stretches of time, we generally see the seasonal outliers get closer to their peers.

As for just how much BABIP and LOB% capture the difference between ERA and FIP, the answer is they account for the great majority of it. I took all individual seasons from 1995 through last season and ran them through a multiple regression calculator to come up with a formula for predicting the difference between ERA and FIP. The r-squared for the formula for the 3,400 seasons was .75, so BABIP and LOB% are doing a huge amount of the heavy lifting when it comes to explaining the difference between ERA and FIP. I put the same formula into this year’s numbers and this is how they came out:

We still see some outliers, but overall, the formula did a very good job predicting the difference between ERA and FIP using LOB% and BABIP. There are a few outliers. Dakota Hudson jumps out, but his larger ERA-FIP discrepancy is pretty easily explained by 15 unearned runs. If he had a more normal five earned runs, the difference would be under a run and he’d be in the big group with everybody else. Justin Verlander, on the other hand, appears to be breaking the formula entirely. To see how, here are 3,500-plus individual pitcher seasons with over 100 innings since 1995, and their LOB% and BABIP:

Quite simply, Verlander is having one of the most unusual seasons we’ve ever seen, with the highest LOB% and lowest BABIP in the last 100 years in the same season. As we can see above, there is some correlation between LOB% and BABIP, with an r-squared of .2, but that’s not as strong as either statistic’s relationship with FIP-ERA, and a pitcher’s BABIP’s relationship with his team’s BABIP is around the same strength, with team BABIP and team UZR having a slightly stronger relationship.

While there is certainly a case to be made that pitchers have control over the quality of contact they yield to some extent — no one would deny the existence of groundball pitchers or fly ball pitchers — BABIP doesn’t even necessarily measure contact quality. It counts every batted ball in the park as either a hit or an out, doesn’t include homers at all, and it varies greatly from year to year. Even xwOBA, which includes homers and dials in on the quality of contact, has difficulty finding a relationship year over year on contact. Looking just at in-season results, wOBA on contact has a difficult time becoming reliable.

It’s only natural to want to find a reason why a pitcher’s ERA and FIP are so different, and for that reason to be related to something the pitcher is or isn’t doing. Unfortunately, that isn’t always likely to be the case. In any single season, there are going to be outliers due to the relatively small sample of plate appearances we are dealing with, and almost all of the difference between ERA and FIP can be explained by BABIP and LOB%. While not all of a pitcher’s BABIP and LOB% are due to a pitcher’s defense, sequencing luck, and just general good fortune, a decent amount is just that. Baseball is a team sport and defenses play a large role in run prevention. While it isn’t always easy to admit, luck plays a role as well.

In terms of notoriety, Nestor Cortes Jr. barely registers a blip on the national radar. That’s not meant as a slight to the 24-year-old lefty. It’s just that when you play for a star-studded team — in baseball’s largest market, no less — it’s hard to make a name for yourself as a rookie reliever. More specifically, a soft-tossing rookie reliever who lasted until the 36th round of the 2013 draft.

He’s probably the most unique member of the 2019 New York Yankees. Born in Surgidero de Batabano, Cuba, and raised in Hialeah, Florida, Cortes has a little Luis Tiant in his windup — Oliver Perez would be a contemporary comp — and his lack of giddy-up is more of a wrinkle than a scar. He’s averaging better than a strikeout per inning with a heater that lives south of 90.

“I’m more of a deception pitcher,” said Cortes, whose 5.13 ERA is accompanied by an unblemished 5-0 record. “The cliche is that everybody throws 95 now, but what I do is try to mess up timing. The multiple windups I use, the spin rate on my fastball, hiding the ball well before I go to home plate… I try to abide by all of that. I cherish that I can use those things to my advantage.”

Those attributes are on display in The Bronx because the Orioles opted not to keep him. Cortes was a Rule 5 pick by Baltimore in December 2017, but after appearing in just four games last April he was returned to his original club. He spent the remainder of the season in Triple-A with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RoughRiders. Read the rest of this entry »

Things aren’t going all that well for the Phillies. On Wednesday night, with Aaron Nola on the hill, the team looked to take their third consecutive game from the Reds, in the hopes of adding to their solid start to September. But after Nola gave up five runs in the first two innings, and their comeback was foiled by a bullpen implosion, Philadelphia’s early-month momentum was stopped right in its tracks.

On Thursday afternoon, the story was different, but the result was the same. The Phillies couldn’t get the clutch hit, and the team went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position before falling 4-3 in 11 innings. With losses in back-to-back games to close out the series, Philadelphia had to settle for a split with Cincinnati. Things don’t look better in the immediate future, either. The Phillies have the toughest remaining schedule, they do not have much depth, and their playoff odds have dwindled to just 1.9%.

Even as the 2019 outlook becomes bleak, there has been one major bright spot this year. If they do overcome the odds and make the postseason, this player could find himself receiving some down-ballot votes for NL MVP. No, I’m not talking about Bryce Harper; rather, I’m referring to J.T. Realmuto, who has officially solidified his status as baseball’s best catcher. Read the rest of this entry »

Cody Bellinger is in the midst of an MVP-caliber season. His 7.3 WAR is second in the majors, his 166 wRC+ ranks third, and he’s among the league leaders in almost every offensive category. Barring a major surprise (from, say, Anthony Rendon), the NL MVP should come down to him and Christian Yelich. In addition to his incredible production at the plate, Bellinger has improved by leaps and bounds in the field. He’s putting up elite defensive numbers in right field for the Dodgers, and now they’re planning on moving him to center field full-time for the rest of the season.

The inconsistent play of A.J. Pollock in center provoked this move. An elite center fielder in his time with the Diamondbacks, Pollock’s defense has slipped terribly this year (-8 DRS, -5.8 UZR); meanwhile, Bellinger’s defense has improved dramatically this year (19 DRS, 9.8 UZR). The Dodgers are hoping this shuffle will give them the optimal alignment in the outfield in their quest for a championship.

At this point in his career, it’s more accurate to call Bellinger an outfielder than a first baseman. A few weeks ago, his major league time spent on the grass surpassed his time spent on the dirt. When he was drafted out of high school, Bellinger’s defensive scouting reports often mentioned that he had the athleticism to play in the outfield, but only in a corner. Here’s how Bernie Pleskoff described his defensive potential in his MLB.com scouting profile: “If needed, he could be a successful outfielder. I don’t think he has the speed to play center, but I think he could succeed in right.”

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This week, Michael Lorenzen put himself in the company of the Bambino, Abba Dabba, and The Caveman. In Wednesday night’s game between the Reds and Phillies in Cincinnati, the versatile 27-year-old became the first player since Babe Ruth to collect a win as a pitcher, hit a home run, and play the outfield in a single game, something Ruth did for the Yankees on June 13, 1921. On Thursday afternoon, Lorenzen drew the first start of his career in center field, thus becoming the first pitcher to make a start in the field in the game after netting a win since the Braves’ Jim Tobin (nicknamed Abba Dabba for reasons unclear) on July 29, 1943, and the first pitcher to start in the outfield since Don Robinson (nicknamed The Caveman for his physique) in 1984. As esoteric as this collection of achievements may be, it’s reason enough to examine the progress of Lorenzen and a few other potential two-way players whom I highlighted in late February.

In the top of the seventh inning of Wednesday’s game, manager David Bell called upon Lorenzen for his 66th appearance of the year, in the service of protecting a 5-4 lead. While Lorenzen served up a game-tying homer to Jay Bruce, the second batter he faced, Jose Iglesias’ solo homer off Jose Alvarez in the bottom of the frame put the Reds back on top. Lorenzen then threw a scoreless eighth, retiring Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, and Jean Segura in order. In the bottom of the eighth, with two outs and one on against Blake Parker, he launched his first home run of the season and seventh of his career, a 100.7-mph, 387-foot shot that put the Reds up 8-5. When closer Raisel Iglesias entered for the ninth, Lorenzen moved to center field (his 18th appearance in the outfield this year), replacing rookie Brian O’Grady. He was a bystander as Iglesias set down the side in order, but he did vulture a win, his first of the season.

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If you follow baseball from the East Coast, it’s easy to forget about Kyle Seager. Though never quite as famous as his performance would merit, he’s been a star for the better part of the last decade — he and Félix Hernández were the solitary workhorses trying to drag the Mariners out of a playoff drought and back to glory. Seager arrived in the majors at the tail end of Félix’s peak, but they were both always there, annually among the game’s best and never in the playoffs.

That feels like eons ago now. The Mariners have been redefined since then; by Jerry Dipoto’s manic trading, by the delight of watching Daniel Vogelbach hit, by painful injuries and eagles landing. Meanwhile, time has dragged the old generation down. With Félix’s rapid decline as a guidepost, it’s easy to lump Seager in with him as a deprecated model of Mariner.

The numbers tell the story. From 2012 to 2016, Seager posted a wRC+ between 108 and 134 every season and averaged 4.5 WAR per year. He seemed to only be getting better — 2016 was his best season yet, a 5.2 WAR, 134 wRC+ masterpiece when he struck out only 16% of the time and walked at a 10.2% clip. A down 2017 (106 wRC+) was understandable, with a low BABIP and slightly worsening plate discipline dragging down his overall line, but a downward trajectory for a 29-year-old was enough to make observers a little worried.

2018 was worse — his walks plummeted, his strikeouts ballooned to 21.9%, and he posted a lower ISO than he had in dead-ball 2014 on his way to an 83 wRC+. He started 2019 on the injured list after hand surgery, a worrisome injury for any hitter. It was slow going upon his return, and as the Mariners wilted after their strong start, it felt as though Seager’s career was doing the same. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are a few more prospects I saw at the WBSC U-18 World Cup taking place in Busan, South Korea. You can check out my previous dispatches here and here.

Mick Abel (United States), RHP

If you’ve followed 2020 prospects for a while, you’ve probably have heard of Mick Abel, a right handed pitcher out of Jesuit High School in Oregon. The righty is currently ranked fourth on THE BOARD and is one of the consensus top pitchers for next year’s draft. In their report, Kiley and Eric noted that Abel is an “excellent high school projection arm” and by looking at him, it was an apt label. Abel currently has a fairly slim frame but long limbs. When he adds some weight, I can see him having an A.J. Burnett-esque build. Abel pitched on September 3 against Spain during the group stage play of the U-18 World Cup. His delivery indicated how he’s able to throw into mid-90s. Abel has a relaxed yet up-tempo delivery with a long stride. When his body parts sync correctly, he features an excellent hip/shoulder separation into landing, which unleashes his torso and arm forward furiously, resulting in elite arm speed. Abel also gets over the front leg well during the release, which should help him command-wise in long-term.

Throughout his outing, Abel showed a two-pitch fastball and slider mix. His best stuff showed in the first inning, when he sat 92-94 mph and touched 95. His slider also showed some tight spin with a 10-4 tilt. At the time, both pitches showed flashes of being plus. However, as the outing progressed, Abel became inconsistent in his delivery – particularly, syncing his body parts and finding the release point – and his fastball velocity dipped to 90-92 mph range. His slider, while garnering a few whiffs here and there, did not flash the sharpness it had in the first inning and became loopier. Read the rest of this entry »

On August 3, Wilson Ramos put the New York Mets on his back. They were facing the Pittsburgh Pirates one day after the Bucs snapped New York’s seven-game win streak, and they were on a mission to begin a new streak with a series-knotting victory. Ramos got the Mets off to a hot start with an RBI single in the first, but the Pirates answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning to take the lead. Pittsburgh maintained a one-run lead into the top of the eighth, until Ramos unleashed a two-run homer to put the Mets back in front. He got another big opportunity with the bases loaded in the top of the ninth, and again, he came up huge, sending a double to deep right field that scored all three runs. He finished the day 4-for-5 with a career-high six RBIs, and the Mets needed just about all of them, narrowly holding on to beat Pittsburgh, 7-5.

Indeed, that victory kicked off another long run of winning for the Mets, who won each of their next seven games after that performance, giving them 15 victories in 16 games overall. It also, however, began an even longer streak for Ramos. After that game, he hit safely in 26 straight games. That’s the longest hit streak since Whit Merrifield hit safely in 31 straight games from September 10, 2018, to April 10 of this year. In terms of single-season hit streaks, it’s the longest since Freddie Freeman’s 30-game streak near the end of the 2016 season. No one else who has begun a hitting streak in 2019 has maintained one for more than 19 games.

That hit streak came to an end on Wednesday, with Ramos going 0-for-4 against his former club, the Washington Nationals. He did draw a walk in his first plate appearance, which keeps his streak of reaching base alive at 27 games. That designation is less unique — including Ramos, there have been 17 instances in 2019 in which a player has reached base in at least 27 straight games. Jorge Polanco owns the longest such streak, reaching base in 37 straight games from May 13 to June 25. Mike Trout has two such streaks this season; one of 29 games, the other of 28. On-base streaks, however, are definitively easier to pull off than hit streaks. After all, reaching base can involve any of a hit, a walk, or a hit-by-pitch, while a hit streak specifically requires one of those to stay alive. Since 2009, there have been a total of 21 hit streaks of at least 25 games. There have been 21 on-base streaks of at least 25 games in 2019 alone. Read the rest of this entry »