Let’s begin by considering the experience of today’s top amateur pitchers. Each time a coveted prospect at the prep level begins his delivery to the plate, he’s confronted by the same vision: a crowd of radar guns raised in unison by the scouts looming just beyond the chain-link fence behind home plate. For them, the radar gun is the objective, truth-telling scouting tool, one that often decides draft-day fortunes.

One of the most notable features on a player’s Perfect Game profile page is not a pitchability score or makeup grade, but rather his top velocity reading. Riley Pint was a top-five overall pick in 2016 because he could hit triple digits in high school. And while the Rockies aren’t particularly worried, he’s demonstrated little command or feel for pitching thus far in his pro career.

It’s not that velocity does not matter. Velocity matters a great deal. It creates margin for error, reduces batters’ timing, and enhances the effects of breaking pitches and off-speed offerings.

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There has been considerable handwringing this offseason about the way the new Marlins ownership group has gone about dismantling any hopes of a competitive club the near future. The front office inherited a borderline playoff contender — one featuring the reigning NL MVP, as well as multiple young, talented, and cost-controlled players — and made no attempt to build a winner in what should be a wide-open Wild Card race in 2018 as well as a wide-open National League East at the start of the following season.

That the Marlins chose a different path is unfortunate for baseball and unfortunate for long-suffering Marlins fans — not to mention the potential Marlins fans who could have been cultivated with a commitment to winning in the long term.

Now that it’s clear that the Marlins have chosen not to field a competitive team in the near term, it is time to examine their current options with J.T. Realmuto and Christian Yelich and begin to analyze their decisions up to this point. As Dave Cameron noted in the aftermath of the Giancarlo Stanton trade to the Yankees, the Marlins did okay with their market value salary dumps.

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It’s January, and the story of the offseason is that it’s actually lived up to its monicker. Outside of Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Otani’s respective moves to new teams essentially on the same day, MLB clubs have been in hibernation this winter. And so instead of evaluating trades or free-agent contracts, we’re left instead to ponder what is causing the inaction.

The potential culprits are numerous. If you’re inclined to see owners as evil profiteers, it’s easy to talk yourself into a collusion theory. Or this is the consequence of the Players Association accepting a luxury tax that might be acting as a de facto salary cap. Or maybe it’s just that every team has figured out that prices go down as spring training draws closer, so now everyone is trying the same wait-it-out game plan. Or maybe these particular free agents just aren’t that good. Or maybe it’s that next year’s free agents are too good.

Each of those theories seem to have some validity, and I think there’s probably a bit of most of that going on. But I think there’s also an explanation that makes everyone’s passivity perfectly rational: a lack of sufficient divisional competition to create the sort of pressure that justifies high-risk free-agent signings.

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The Blue Jays traded a couple prospects for a versatile infielder this weekend following a season during which their own infielders had trouble staying on the field. That much about the Yangervis Solarte trade makes sense.

What makes a little less sense? A Toronto team projected to finish almost 10 games worse than the best two teams in their division just improved their 2018 roster at a potential cost down the road. It might be a fine trade in a vacuum, but is it a well-timed one?

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If you read this past Sunday’s notes column, you know that Lars Anderson has taken his left-handed stroke — and his storytelling skills! — to Australia. After beginning his escapades in the Southern Hemisphere with the club-level Henley and Grange Rams, Anderson is now playing for the Sydney Blue Sox in the Australian Baseball League. More so, just as he did last summer as a member of the Kochi Fighting Dogs, he is chronicling his baseball experiences on the other side of the world.

Once again, the multi-talented former big leaguer has agreed to share some of his stories with FanGraphs readers. Following up on last year’s well-received Lars Anderson Discovers Japan series, here is the first installment of Lars Anderson Discovers Australia.

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Lars Anderson: “I took my first steps in the Southern Hemisphere in my trusted black flip-flops. The rest of my wardrobe consisted of a thin, long-sleeved shirt and shorts (overdressed by Cambodian standards, but hey, airplanes can be cold). Being that it was, in fact, summer Down Under, I thought I’d be overdressed again. I was wrong and I was freezing.

“The research I had done prior to landing said Adelaide, my new home city, boasts two seasons: cold and super hot. Although it was technically summer, the heat wave had yet to come. I had shipped all of my warm clothes back to the states before leaving Japan so I was high, cold, and dry. A Radiohead remix.

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There was a fear back in 2014 and 2015 that professional baseball was merely experiencing the early stages of a Tommy John epidemic.

There were concerns that sports specialization, the focus on velocity over feel for the craft, was stressing arms even before they arrived in the majors. It seemed possible that rising league-average velocity marks — for which there’s now a new record set each year — were creating demands on pitchers’ elbows that their bodies couldn’t withstand.

Tommy John surgeries reached a record level in 2014, a level surpassed again in 2015. Velocity kept inching up. Pitchers with medical histories and red flags kept flowing into the game via the draft. Said Pirates GM Neal Huntington to this former newspaperman in 2014:

“They were blown away by the number of significant injuries high school and college pitchers had this year compared to three years ago, five years ago. The level of injuries is growing exponentially,” Huntington said. “We are just starting to get to the front edge of this (Tommy John surgery) wave. We might not even be through the worst of this yet.”

That was not an encouraging sentiment from someone with a commanding view of the game. The wave of Tommy John surgeries did seem to have become an epidemic that was growing in strength, one which would cost both pitchers and teams millions upon millions of dollars.

And then a funny thing happened: the surgeries began to decline.

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When I talked to Brady Aiken in August, he claimed that he wasn’t concerned with his radar gun readings, nor was he worried about ”trying to please people with velocity.” He was just trying to get outs any way he could, “regardless of whether (he was) throwing 100 or throwing 80.”

Two years after the Indians drafted him in the first round — and two years post Tommy John surgery — Aiken spent his summer pumping low-octane gas. A heater that touched 96 in high school was now hovering in the high 80s, and only occasionally inching north of 90. Other numbers were a concern as well. The 21-year-old southpaw had a 4.77 ERA and walked 101 batters in 132 innings for low-A Lake County.

Aiken was amiable yet defensive when addressing his performance and his velocity. With the caveat that “everyone wants to throw hard,” he allowed that he’s not where he once was. And while he’s not sure what to expect going forward, he sees positives in what is hopefully a temporary backslide.

“I’ve had to learn to become more of a pitcher, because I can’t just blow balls by guys anymore,” said Aiken. “At this level, you’re also not facing high school or college guys — this is their job, and you have to be better at your job than they are at theirs. If you can command the ball well at 90-92 you should be able to find holes in bats, and be able to get outs.” Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, Travis Sawchik addressed some of the confusion surrounding an apparent bidding war for the services of Eric Hosmer, a player who’s limited to first base defensively and has produced a career batting line only about 10% better than league average.

Hosmer has been an inconsistent performer since his debut in 2011, but wildly differing narratives have emerged regarding the the 28-year-old and his virtues. There are those who praise his intangibles, qualities that have made Hosmer a team leader and World Series champion. And while Hosmer’s agent Scott Boras is certainly selling that point of view, it’s also one that’s difficult to quantify. For the purposes of this post, we’ll ignore it.

There’s also the narrative surrounding Hosmer’s ground-ball tendencies. If he could just embrace hitting the ball in the air — maybe in a park that doesn’t suppress fly balls like Kansas City — his offense might take another step forward. Travis discussed that possibility, as well, back in November.

An alternate way of selling Hosmer is to say he just produced a breakout season. That’s one we will explore here.

Perhaps the term breakout isn’t entirely accurate. After all, Hosmer authored a couple good seasons before 2017. It’s also reasonable to say that the most recent campaign constitutes the best of Hosmer’s career, though, his 135 wRC+ and 4.1 WAR both representing career highs. Hosmer also arrived in the majors as a 21-year-old who’d compiled just 329 plate appearances above High-A, so it’s possible that some of the challenges he’s faced at the major-league level are a product of having to learn on the job.

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Scott Alexander threw his power sinker 91.9% of the time last year — the highest percentage among pitchers to toss at least 40 innings — and for good reason. It was an elite offering. Working out of the Kansas City bullpen, Alexander logged an MLB-best 73.8% ground-ball rate and snazzy 2.48 ERA over 58 appearances covering 69 frames.

His worm-killing weapon will be on display in a new location this coming season. In a deal examined by Travis Sawchik last night, the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Alexander in a three-team trade that also involved the Chicago White Sox.

The 28-year-old southpaw qualifies as a late-bloomer. A sixth-round pick by the Royals in 2010 out of Sonoma State University (he was originally at Pepperdine), Alexander went into last year with just 25 big-league innings under his belt. Thanks to a velocity jump and increased usage of his sinker, however, he emerged as one of the best under-the-radar relievers in the junior circuit.

Alexander discussed the evolution of his signature pitch when the Royals visited Fenway Park last summer. Also weighing in on the southpaw’s development was Kansas City bullpen coach Doug Henry.

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Alexander on learning his sinker: “I throw a one-seam sinker. The grip was taught to me in college by Scott Erickson. I think he might have been trying to make a comeback at the time, and he’d come over to our field, at Pepperdine, to work out. I was throwing a bullpen and he saw that my ball had natural movement to it, kind of a natural tail. He asked me what I was throwing, and I showed him my grip, which was a four-seam. He showed me his one-seam grip.

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The Dodgers, Royals, and White Sox executed a three-team trade on Thursday night. Los Angeles acquired 28-year-old lefty Scott Alexander from Kansas City and INF Jake Peter from Chicago while sending RHP Trevor Oaks and INF Erick Mejia to Kansas City and Luis Avilan to Chicago. In addition to Avilan, the White Sox received reliever Joakim Soria from Kansas City and cash from both other teams.

Travis Sawchik examined the deal last night from the Dodgers’ perspective. Below are scouting reports on Alexander (who exhausted rookie eligibility in 2018 but still has a developing skill set) and the deal’s prospects. Notes and prose are a combination of my own and Kiley McDaniel’s.

Going to Los Angeles

Scott Alexander, LHP (from Royals)
The late-blooming lefty was an effective MLB reliever last year, posting a 2.48 ERA on the back of a 73% ground-ball rate. He relies on a sinker that he throws a whopping 94% of the time, working at 92-94 and touching 96 with plus-plus life. It’s average velocity jumped nearly three ticks last year, while the usage jumped accordingly from 72%. He barely used his slider, but it’s an above-average pitch now — also with three ticks more velo — that scouts think he should throw more often. Alexander’s slider may work against righties effectively, as well, due to its more vertical shape (versus a normal slider). He may not miss many bats but is an effective relief piece who might only just be discovering something unique.

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