As a baseball fan, winning feels great and losing feels awful. When teams win in dull fashion, fans are generally content to take the wins even if they aren’t all that thrilling. The Astros, Twins, and Dodgers are blowing teams out on a regular basis, but those wins aren’t causing too much consternation. But on the other end of the spectrum are teams that lose a lot of games and fail to provide much excitement during those contests. These are the bad teams that fall behind early and don’t give too much reason in terms of wins and losses to keep following the game. By combining a team’s winning or losing ways with how important at-bats tend to be, we can determine the most exciting team in baseball, as well as the most miserable club.

To determine how often teams have tension-inducing moments, we can take a look at Leverage Index (LI). Our glossary says “Leverage Index is essentially a measure of how critical a particular situation is. To calculate it, you are measuring the swing of the possible change in win expectancy.” A game’s LI starts at 1.0, and the more meaningful plate appearances gets, the higher the index rises; if plate appearances become less meaningful, the index goes lower. Leverage Index shows up on our Play Logs and is on the bottom of our Win Expectancy graphs. Here’s one for Game 3 of last year’s World Series:

The bars along the bottom identify the biggest moments of the game, even if something big doesn’t show up on the scoreboard. For teams, we are dealing with more than a thousand plays at this point in the season. If we take the average LI of every play, we can see if teams have a tendency to have a decent number of important moments during their games or if things are decided relatively early, with the players playing out games with little chance of changing the outcome. Read the rest of this entry »

On May 8, Kyle Seager hurt his left hand. This was bad news for Seager and for the Mariners, but good news for Daniel Vogelbach. With Seager out, Ryon Healy moved from first to third base, covering for Seager; Edwin Encarnación, in turn, moved into the first base slot vacated by Healy, and Vogelbach — who had not previously had a path to much playing time — became the Mariners’ primary designated hitter. Since then, and despite a mixed May that dropped his wOBA from a terrific .481 through April 30 to a diminished but still distinguished .385 after the weekend’s action, Vogelbach has shown all the power that his brawn has always promised and the plate discipline that has always been his calling card to boot. His .313 ISO is now ninth in the game, and behind only Joey Gallo and George Springer in the American League.

Let’s start with the power, both because there aren’t too many people who can do the damage Vogelbach does when he really connects with a baseball, and because it provides a clue to what’s changed this year. When Vogelbach connects, as he did on May 27 at the expense of José Leclerc, the camera tends to pan so far up that it’s clear the operator, like everyone else in the ballpark, has no idea where the baseball is or where it’s going to land. All that is clear, for the few long seconds the ball is airborne, is that it’s gone an awfully long way. After this bomb (only the third in the history of the park to hit the third deck, and the first since Carlos Delgado did it way back in 2001), the Mariners put up a traffic cone and taped over the seat. That’s just fun to watch. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Wednesday, Cubs outfielder Albert Almora Jr. hit a foul ball. That is not an unusual occurrence at a baseball game, except that this particular foul ball hit a four-year-old girl in the stands. Almora, quite understandably, was visibly shaken.

Unsurprisingly, the incident ignited another round of debate over a topic we first discussed last year: protective netting at ballparks. Brian Johnson, a former major league catcher and current scout for the San Francisco Giants, told CNN’s Jeff Pearlman that the existence of seats without netting is like building cars without seat belts. But, as we discussed last year, the law doesn’t see it that way:

As explained in the Restatement [of Torts], there exists in the law a doctrine called “assumption of the risk.” In the context of baseball, that basically means that if you sit in an area without protective netting and you know it’s a possibility that a foul ball might come your way, you can’t sue the team for getting injured by that foul ball. As one court put it in a case called Edward C. v. City of Albuquerque, a fan ‘must exercise ordinary care to protect himself or herself from the inherent risk of being hit by a projectile’ — even if that projectile is traveling upwards of 100 mph.

There’s a really excellent write-up on this that you can read here. In short, however, this “baseball rule” represents the majority rule in the United States. If a foul ball comes your way at a ballpark, the law basically says you should have seen it coming. You’ll probably find language on your ticket saying you assume the risk of injury by foul ball, like the Yankees have on theirs.

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Stephen Nogosek got one step closer to the big leagues when he was promoted from Double-A Binghamton to Triple-A Syracuse On May 24. The next rung on the ladder is New York, and the 24-year-old right-hander will be bringing more than a four-pitch mix with him when he arrives at Citi Field. He’ll bring a mule-deer mindset, as well.

Nogosek was a Duck before becoming a Met. In between, he was Red Sox property, having been selected by the AL East club in the sixth round of the 2016 draft out of the University of Oregon. Thirteen months later, he was included in the trade-deadline deal that brought Addison Reed to Boston. The address change didn’t shake him up so much as wake him up.

“I was asleep on this bus,” explained Nogosek, who was with high-A Salem at the time. “We were our way to Winston-Salem, and Adam Lau nudged me and said, ‘Hey, you just got traded.’ I was like, ‘Whatever,’ and fell back asleep. When I kind of woke up a little, I was like, “OK, did I really get traded?’

Shenanigans were certainly possible — teammates can’t always be trusted on such matters — but this was no tomfoolery. Once the cobwebs cleared, Nogosek learned that he would indeed be receiving his paychecks (meager as they are in the minors) from another organization. Read the rest of this entry »

It doesn’t take an ardent reader of FanGraphs or a great appreciator of advanced statistics to understand that Cody Bellinger is having an incredible season. Twenty home runs and a .377 batting average will get you noticed by anybody and everybody. However, appreciating the type of work and the numbers available at this site might aid in understandings and enjoying just how good Bellinger has been. Devan Fink wrote about it here not too long ago. Mike Petriello added his insight. Travis Sawchik’s analysis is out there. Sam Miller offered some context and so has Ginny Searle. If you favor more traditional outlets, Andy McCullough of the LA Times is on the case as well. Rather than build on the already good work of others, let’s take up a different task: Let’s try to get Cody Bellinger out.

As a pitcher, strike one is incredibly important. When pitchers get to 0-1 this season, batters are putting up a 63 wRC+, but if the hitter gets ahead 1-0, those swinging the bat have the advantage and put up a 128 wRC+. So what happens when a pitcher gets ahead of Cody Bellinger? It doesn’t matter at all. This season, Bellinger is putting up a 207 wRC+ in the 111 plate appearances when he falls behind on the first pitch. That mark slightly undersells the “advantage” of trying to get ahead of Bellinger, as he’s 10-for-18 on the first pitch with four homers, a triple, and two doubles. There really aren’t any counts where pitchers gain an advantage and keep it throughout a plate appearance against him.

Getting to a 1-2 or 2-2 count is better than not, but he’s still been one of the best in the game in those counts, and his 127 wRC+ with two strikes ranks fourth in baseball this season. Bellinger has been pretty close to the same great hitter in any count. When the count has been 0-2 this season, he has just one swinging strikeout on pitches outside of the zone, and on the 15 pitches in the zone, he’s swung at 13 and only whiffed twice with five fouls and three hits in six batted balls. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: We’re excited to announce that Jason Martinez has joined FanGraphs. His twice-weekly Roster Roundup column, of which this is the first installment, will generally run Monday and Friday afternoons. In the coming months, his site, RosterResource.com, will become part of our offering here at FanGraphs, with Jason also driving our depth charts and the player contract information you see on player pages. We’re thrilled to have Jason join our team and can’t wait to bring his expertise, and the indispensable site he created, to our readers here.

Below you’ll find a roundup of notable moves from the past few days, as well as future expected moves and a Minor League Report, which includes a list of recent major league debuts and a few players who are “knocking down the door” to the majors. For this column, any lineup regulars, starting pitchers, or late-inning relievers are considered “notable,” meaning that middle relievers, long relievers, and bench players are excluded. You can always find a full list of updated transactions here.

Lineup Regulars

Baltimore Orioles
5/28/19: OF DJ Stewart recalled from Triple-A.

Stewart earned the call-up by slashing .316/.425/.586 in 187 Triple-A plate appearances. He started in right field on Tuesday (3-for-4, SB) and Wednesday (0-for-4). Two months after failing to make the Opening Day roster, he should get a chance to play everyday.

Depth Chart | Roster Resource Read the rest of this entry »

While many of the division races in baseball look quite similar to those in 2018, the AL Central has gone topsy-turvy. The Indians, despite a lackluster offseason, looked to be the clear favorite, with the Twins the only realistic threat to their recent dominance. That has turned out not to be the case, with Cleveland hanging around .500 as we enter the third month of the season and Minnesota holding a 9 1/2 game advantage, the largest divisional lead in baseball. I’d like to say I saw this coming, but I did not, and if I claimed otherwise, readers would no doubt out me as a filthy, filthy liar.

What was my complaint about the Twins? While they were considerably busier in the offseason than their rivals on the Cuyahoga, I was disappointed that they didn’t do more. Nelson Cruz was a solid short-term addition, and players like Marwin Gonzalez, C.J. Cron, and Jonathan Schoop all improved the depth of the team’s talent base, but I thought they should have been even more aggressive in their winter investments. Joe Mauer’s contract came off the books, and in a division with only one real 2019 rival, my belief was that it would be a mistake to start the season with a lower payroll than in 2018. Just one year before, the Twins aggressively pursued Yu Darvish and while that would clearly not have been a boon for the team that season, it represented them really pushing chips with the high-rollers when the opportunity presented itself.

But it has turned out that the need for a Bryce Harper or a Manny Machado or a Patrick Corbin wasn’t so pressing after all. Jake Odorizzi‘s continued development and Martin Perez’s unexpected velocity have a lot to do with it as well, but the Twins wouldn’t be where they are if a change in their offensive philosophy hadn’t paid off in spades. Read the rest of this entry »

Owners of the majors’ fourth-best record (37-20) and second-best run differential (+92), the Astros have been humming along in typical powerhouse fashion, but a recent rash of injuries is testing their depth. In a 15-day span they sent Jose Altuve, Collin McHugh, George Springer, Max Stassi, and Aledmys Diaz to the injured list, all for comparatively mundane-sounding injuries to muscles and joints. On Wednesday they gave us something new, namely the news that Carlos Correa had suffered a fractured rib while receiving a massage at his home, which will sideline him for four to six weeks.

It’s a bizarre injury worthy of a Jayson Stark column, and one that set off speculation as to its veracity, to say nothing of the jokes. Unlike the Mets’ handling of Yoenis Cespedes’ recent eyebrow-raising ankle fractures, which the outfielder suffered on his ranch, the Astros gave no hint that Correa’s injury was the result of any mischief. Via The Athletic’s Jake Kaplan:

“Players do a lot of things outside of the field that we’re never aware of or not aware of. Everybody’s trying to get better in their own way, and I’m sure he was receiving treatment for specific reasons,” Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow said. “It’s unfortunate that it happened that way, but we’re concerned right now mostly about getting him back. He’s going to have to rest for a little bit, let the bones heal and get back to doing the physical activity that will help him be back on the field.”

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You’ve surely heard the sentiment: that pitcher is boom-or-bust. When he’s dialed in, he’s unhittable, but sometimes he just doesn’t “have it.” It’s a non-falsifiable claim, of course. It’s nearly impossible to say what constitutes having it or not, and harder still to know if it’s predictive. For the most part, your talent level is your talent level. Great pitcher? You’ll have fewer blowup games. Bad pitcher? Random chance is going to give you your fair share of crooked numbers.

This unprovable fact, however, set me onto an interesting train of thought. What if run clustering isn’t a purely random process? What if some pitchers, not through any innate streakiness but merely by virtue of the outcomes they allow, give up runs in interesting patterns? Take a groundball-heavy pitcher, for example. When a run scores against him, it’s almost certainly due to a series of groundball singles and walks. If one run scores, there’s often another runner in scoring position right away. The state of the world upon giving up one run, for this Zack Britton-wannabe pitcher, is such that he’s immediately threatened with more runs.

Contrast that to a different type of pitcher, a Nick Anderson-style strikeouts and dingers fly ball pitcher. When our punch-outs and fly balls pitcher gives up a run, it’s often on a solo shot. When that’s the case, one run is in, but the resulting situation isn’t threatening anymore. The bases are empty, the damage done in a single instant. Wouldn’t it be reasonable to wonder whether the two allow runs in different bunches?

Still, those are a lot of words with no real evidence behind them. Who’s to say which of those pitchers allow more big innings? Who’s to say if they’re even equally good pitchers? The guy who allows a lot of home runs sounds like he might allow a lot of big innings, just by virtue of being someone who allows a lot of home runs. We need to be more precise to say anything with conviction. Read the rest of this entry »

“You have to be good to be a hot dog,” said Pirates play-by-play broadcaster Greg Brown during Tuesday night’s Reds-Pirates contest, quoting Dock Ellis to conclude an anecdote about the May 1, 1974 start in which the Pirates’ free-spirited righty intentionally drilled the first three Reds he faced. In illustrating the long and oft-heated rivalry between the two teams, Brown appeared to arrive at an epiphany regarding the home run celebrations of Derek Dietrich — a subject of unhealthy fixation that had dominated an often cringeworthy broadcast while clumsily recapitulating the game’s generational culture war. The 29-year-old utiltyman had just clubbed his third dinger of the game, fourth of this week’s series, seventh in eight games against the Pirates, and 17th overall, the last a career high and a total tied for fifth in the majors.

Dietrich, who spent six years toiling for the Marlins before being designated for assignment and released last November (stellar personnel management there, Jeets), isn’t a player over whom opponents generally obsess. Beyond being a bat-first type whose defensive versatility depends upon certain levels of tolerance, he’s earned a reputation as something of a cut-up. In the minors, as a member of the Double-A Jacksonville Suns in 2013, he put on a display of his juggling skill that progressed to as many as five balls, then to bowling pins, literal machetes, and flaming torches:

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