On the same night that top prospect Ronald Acuña made his made his major-league debut, a former Brave had his own memorable moment. In Wednesday night’s Rays-Orioles game at Camden Yards, in the bottom of the sixth inning, 33-year-old Rays lefty Jonny Venters made his first major-league appearance since October 5, 2012. He faced just one hitter, Chris Davis, and needed just four pitches to retire him on a routine grounder to shortstop, but in doing so he became the rare pitcher to return to the majors after a third Tommy John surgery.

Exactly how rare is in dispute, which I’ll examine in greater depth below, but first, let’s appreciate the man and his moment. A 30th-round draft-and-follow pick in 2003 out of a Florida high school, Venters was such an obscure prospect that his name was misspelled “Benters” on some draft lists according to John Sickels. He began his professional career in 2004, but by the end of 2005, when he was 20, he had already gone under the knife of Dr. James Andrews for his first Tommy John surgery. That cost him all of the 2006 season. Working primarily as a starter, he reached Double-A in late 2008 and Triple-A in 2009. Though he didn’t make the Braves the following spring, he was soon called up and debuted against the Rockies on April 17, 2010 with three shutout innings.

Able to Bring It with rare velocity for a southpaw (95.1 mph average according to Pitch Info), Venters proved effective against righties as well as lefties and quickly gained the trust of manager Bobby Cox; by June, he was working in high-leverage duty. In 79 appearances as a rookie, he threw 83 innings and struck out 93, finishing with an ERA of 1.93, a FIP of 2.69, and 1.5 WAR. The next year, he made an NL-high 85 appearances and turned in similarly strong numbers in 88 innings, making the All-Star team along the way. The heavy usage was a bit much for his elbow to take, however. By mid-2012, a season during which he made a comparatively meager 66 appearances, he was briefly sidelined by elbow impingement. He began the 2013 season on the disabled list due to lingering elbow pain and soon received a platelet-rich plasma injection to promote healing. On May 16, he underwent his second TJ surgery, also by Dr. Andrews. To that point, he owned a 2.23 ERA, 3.00 FIP, and 26.6% K rate in 229.2 major-league innings.

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Jonny Venters was in the news this week after becoming the first pitcher to appear in a big-league game after undergoing three Tommy John surgeries. The 33-year-old veteran worked one-third-of-an-inning for the Tampa Bay Rays after having last pitched for the Atlanta Braves in the 2012 postseason. It’s a great story, worthy of the attention it’s garnered (and will continue to garner; colleague Jay Jaffe will have more on Venters in the coming days).

On Friday, I approached Venters to discuss a tangentially-related subject: the worm-killing sinker that made him an effective setup man before his elbow became stubbornly uncooperative. Since the stat began being tabulated, no pitcher with at least 125 career innings under his belt has had a higher ground-ball rate than the 68.4% mark put up by the come-backing left-hander.

Venters transitioned to a sinker-ball pitcher in 2009 when he was a starter with the Double-A Mississippi Braves. He’d been primarily a four-seam guy, but the organization asked him to put that pitch in his back pocket and begin prioritizing his two-seam. Helped initially by the tutelage of pitching coach Marty Reed, it eventually became his go-to.

Success wasn’t instantaneous. Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees’ biggest splash at the trade deadline last season was the acquisition of Sonny Gray. The Bronx Bombers thought they had acquired a frontline starting pitcher to pair with homegrown ace Luis Severino and Splitter Aficionado Masahiro Tanaka.

But Sonny Gray, after the trade in 2017, posted a 101 xFIP- and 107 FIP- — this after having produced a 75 xFIP- and also 75 FIP- with Oakland before the deal.

Sonny Gray, since the beginning of 2018, has a 132 xFIP- and 115 FIP-. Sonny Gray, on Wednesday night, gave up three earned runs, a home run, and walked five in 4.2 innings, recording a 6.67 xFIP in the process. Sonny Gray, the Yankees version, has been bad.

One, of course, is curious as to why he’s been bad. What happened to the guy who, at the time of the deal, could boast a 3.25 FIP, 8.7 K/9, 1.175 WHIP, and 3.13 K/BB ratio, numbers that were much more in line with his 2013-15 run with the A’s? On the surface, it appears Gray joined the Yankees and reverted to his troubled 2016 self. After all, after the trade, Gray’s home-runs allowed spiked, from 0.7 per nine to 1.5 per nine. Perhaps as a result of wariness, his walks spiked from 2.8 per nine to 3.7 per nine, as well.

It’s a plausible theory, but it’s also insufficient.

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Kevin Kiermaier has come a long way since I first talked to him in the spring of 2014. At the time, his big-league experience consisted of two games — two very important games — as a defensive replacement with the Tampa Bay Rays. Already considered elite with the glove, he was seen as the club’s centerfielder of the future — assuming he could hold his own with the bat.

A little over a year later, in May 2015, I followed up with the uber-athletic former 31st-round draft pick. As he was coming off a rookie season where he’d slashed a better-than-many-expected .263/.315/.450, the resulting Q&A was titled “Kevin Kiermaier on Turning a Corner”.

The years that have followed have been a combination of prosperous and unkind. The now-28-year-old Kiermaier accumulated 11.3 WAR between 2015-2017, in large part because his defense has been nothing short of exemplary. Despite multiple trips to the disabled list, he led MLB with 89 Defensive Runs Saved over that three-year stretch. At the plate, he slashed a credible .262/.320/.426, with a dozen home runs annually.

Staying on the field has obviously been a major issue. Kiermaier has missed chunks of time with hand and hip fractures, and earlier this month he went on the shelf with a torn ligament in his right thumb. Prior to the most-recent injury, I sat down with Kiermaier to discuss his career thus far, with the main focus being his continued development on the offensive side of the ball. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Friday, in the second inning against the Rangers, Robinson Cano went where no man, at least no infielder, had gone before.

Cano, the Mariners’ nominal second baseman in this instance, was situated in an alignment in which he began 221 feet from home plate against Joey Gallo. Read the rest of this entry »

In 1961, the American League added two teams. To ensure that the 10 teams played an equal number of games against each other, the league moved from 154 games to 162, while the National League stayed put at 154. The following season, the National League followed suit, expanding both the number of teams and the number of games on the schedule. With the exception of strike seasons, the MLB schedule has remained at 162 games. The current setup has teams play 19 games against teams in their own division, with 66 games of the remaining games coming against the rest of the league, and 20 against interleague opponents. This year, more off days pushed up the start of baseball season. That early start coupled with horrendous weather has caused a large number of postponements, which has led to calls for a 154-game season. While I personally prefer the current schedule, a reduction in games is pretty doable.

First, let’s talk about a reason that shouldn’t be used as a justification to shorten the regular season: this year’s postponements. While postponements are drawing a lot of attention, we are likely dealing with a set of unique circumstances that won’t affect future seasons. The season did start a few days earlier than we’ve typically seen, but the biggest factor in all of these postponements isn’t the early start; it’s the bad weather. The number of postponements and cold weather games this season compared to past seasons suggests that this year’s weather is an anomaly unlikely to cause similar disruptions in future seasons. Cutting eight games from the schedule after more than 50 years because of somewhat unusual weather in one year seems unnecessary. If the goal is to move the season back to early April, a half-dozen Saturday day-night doubleheaders later in the summer would accomplish the same thing.

Players certainly seem like they would be willing to drop down to a 154-game schedule, as getting a few extra days off was an important negotiating point in the last round of collective bargaining with the owners. Removing eight games from the schedule would allow players the same number of days off they just bargained for and allow the league to start the season in early April instead of late March. From a pure feasibility standpoint, there is some merit to it, and it doesn’t seem like it would make a ton of difference to fans. The season would be about as long as it used to be; the handful of extra off days spread out over the course of six months wouldn’t make its presence deeply felt. The feel of a baseball season would hardly be impacted. The impediment, seemingly, would be money.

Over at The Athletic, Jayson Stark did some excellent reporting discussing the potential for a 154-game season. Particularly illuminating to me was the nugget that a vast majority of teams would be happy to drop down to an 154-game schedule. Stark did indicate that the minority of teams who would object to a shorter season would have very loud objections.

Stark estimated that a team like the Yankees might lose more than $10 million in gate and concession revenue. Losing four home dates, assuming a couple are less desirable weekday games in April plus a couple Monday games in the summer probably, might have a slightly smaller affect than that as the number of tickets sold for those games is likely to be somewhat lower than average. I am skeptical that teams could raise prices enough to recoup all of that money lost. I would be surprised if teams aren’t already doing whatever they can to maximize ticket and concession revenue. They may be able to get some of that money back, however, particularly from season ticket holders. They could, for example, provide 5% less inventory by taking away four games, but only drop season ticket prices by 3%, thus getting back some of the lost money while still providing a discount compared to what season ticket holders previously paid.

In his piece, Stark discussed the potential problems that might emerge with teams’ contracts with regional sports networks. Contractually, it is possible teams promised a certain number of games, making a change in the schedule challenging. But in terms of revenue, the money lost would be fairly insignificant. The lost revenue for regional television partners would be pretty minimal as the vast majority of that income derives from cable subscriber fees rather than advertising. Nationally, baseball would have little trouble fulfilling any of their deals, as the number of national games seems unlikely to change.

If the Yankees’ lost revenues are somewhere around $10 million, we might be able to roughly estimate the total losses to be somewhere in the $100 million to $150 million range before considering mitigation through some minor price increases. While MLB owners haven’t ever easily given up that much money, we are probably looking at something in the range of 1% or less of total MLB revenues. There might be talk of the players having to sacrifice pay, but these small decreases in overall revenue shouldn’t significantly alter the player-owner split as it is currently structured, and would be the subject of bargaining. Players get the off days they crave, the season starts in April, and the revenue split for the players and owners would likely remain roughly the same.

Financially, dropping eight games from the schedule is probably a lot more feasible than one might think. Of course, making the situation financially feasible doesn’t necessarily make it a great idea. I realize this makes me a bit of a curmudgeon, but I’m used to records and performances based on a 162-game schedule. And the baseball season is long. That’s a feature, not a bug. While 154 games might not feel that different, as someone who consumes baseball in a near-constant fashion all of the months of the year, I would rather have those 120 meaningful regular season games than not have them. The grind of the season with relatively few of the teams qualifying for the playoffs helps make the regular season more special than that of the other major sports.

These reasons aren’t necessarily compelling enough to keep the schedule the way it is. Perhaps someone else can come up with better ones. But it certainly doesn’t seem like finances should be a major impediment.

I don’t mean to pick on Jose Abreu. Abreu has had a fine start to the season, and he is currently under the weather. But, to this point, Abreu has batted five times with less than two out and a runner on third. In zero of those five chances has the runner been driven home. Twice, Abreu has hit into a double play. Once, he’s popped out. Once, he’s struck out. And once, he’s lined out. He’s better than this, of course, and eventually the RBI will be there, but from a fan perspective, few things are more frustrating than such a wasted opportunity.

Every opportunity that doesn’t work out feels wasted. And in large part I think it’s because people don’t really know what normal is. Of course teams can’t convert every opportunity, but, it’s just moving a runner up 90 feet, right? It sounds like it should be easy. In a way, it’s just like bunting. You feel like everyone should be able to do it, but it’s surprisingly challenging to execute. It’s helpful to look at the league-wide numbers. It’s the only way to establish the proper context.

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Even at FanGraphs, I’m one of the last people you should ask about swagger. Among the few things I know about swagger, though, is that Jarrod Dyson has it. He plays his game with a particular flair, and it was on display earlier Thursday, when Dyson struck a pose after lifting his 14th career home run. You wouldn’t think that a hitter with Dyson’s profile would necessarily recognize a homer off the bat, but for a fleeting instant, as Dyson’s body twisted on its right heel, he looked like he’d done this a hundred other times.

Dyson knew it right away. Apparently, so did the catcher. The game was one of those miserable new Facebook broadcasts, so I can’t speak highly of the viewing experience, but as the feed rolled into a replay of the swing, one of the announcer’s voices cracked as he exclaimed, “He bunted last night! With the bases juiced!”

He wasn’t wrong, and if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have known. On Thursday, Jarrod Dyson went deep. On Wednesday, he dropped down a bases-loaded bunt. Both of these events are unusual, but I’d like to now focus on the latter.

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The Ronald Acuña era has begun, and in impressive fashion. Called up by the Braves on Wednesday after his service clock had been sufficiently gamed, the 20-year-old five-tool phenom made his debut against the Reds in Cincinnati, showing off his speed and his aggressive approach at the plate. He sparked a game-tying rally with his first major-league hit, and the Braves ultimately snapped a two-game losing streak against the Reds with a 5-4 win.

Acuña, who turned 20 on December 18, spent 2017 rocketing up the organizational ladder and the prospect rankings, beginning the season at High-A Florida and finishing it at Triple-A Gwinnett, hitting a combined .325/.374/.522 with 21 homers and 44 steals along the way. After ranking anywhere from 31st to 67th on major prospect lists last year, he topped those of Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, and ESPN this spring, taking a back seat only to Shohei Ohtani on those of MLB.com and FanGraphs. Though he tore up the Grapefruit League this spring, either his hat was too crooked or his 2024 season too valuable for the Braves to attempt to start winning games with him in the lineup. General manager Alex Anthopoulos mumbled something about “the flow of the season,” millions of eyes rolled, and the team bought itself that extra year while Acuña started 2-for-19 at Triple-A Gwinnett.

The assumption with that move was that the Braves were just marking time in the fourth season of a rebuilding program that’s been far more dramatic than most, in terms of both highs (the stealing of 2015 overall No. 1 pick Dansby Swanson from the Diamondbacks, the 2017 opening of SunTrust Park) and lows (the mid-2016 firing of manager Fredi Gonzalez, the late-2017 resignation and subsequent lifetime ban of general manager John Coppolella for circumventing international signing rules). With Wednesday’s win, they’re now 13-10, their best start in five years and good for third place in a topsy-turvy NL East behind the Mets (15-7) and Phillies (15-8). That trio of teams finished a combined 70 games below .500 last year, but with the Nationals (11-14) starting slowly and the Marlins stripped nearly to the bone after a 77-85 finish that was somehow good for second place, the standings look a whole lot different.

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Among the early-season strikeout leaders, one finds many of the usual names, pitchers like Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, and Noah Syndergaard. But sandwiched between Syndergaard and Justin Verlander, at seventh overall, is a bit of surprise: J.A. Happ. The veteran lefty has struck out 33.6% of batters faced so far this year.

Because strikeout rate begins to stabilize before almost any other metric, this is a possible first sign that something about Happ is fundamentally different. His swinging-strike rate — another predictive figure — has also jumped, up to 14.1%. He’s never reached double-digits by that measure over the course of a full season.

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