In my weekly chats or in the comments section of certain posts, readers often ask a question like, “Does Pitcher X have ace potential?” or some variant of it. While it makes sense that people would be curious about such a thing, the answer is (by definition) almost always “No.” Because there are so few aces in the majors, the probability that any prospect would develop into one is necessarily low.

When I’m at games — and especially when I’m at spring-training games — I’ll occasionally run into someone like Corey Kluber, though. And while I realize nobody’s wondering if Kluber has a chance of succeeding in the majors, there’s some value in writing up guys like this as an exercise, to illustrate what an ace looks like on paper. So that’s what I’ve done here. (Note, as well: context is important when reading the following, as it’s the product of an abbreviated spring look.)

Kluber was 90-92 in my viewing, with enough movement on his fastball to merit a half-grade bump. That’s about 1.5 ticks slower than his average fastball velocity from last year, but this is typical of early-spring Kluber. I put a 55 on his fastball while observing im and imagine it’s plus during the season when he’s throwing harder.

He mixed in a cutter, slider, changeup, and a curveball. The cutter was 86-88 with tight, late movement. It was consistently plus, flashing plus-plus, and Kluber put it where he wanted to when he wanted to. It’s likely that the slider and curveball are the same pitch and that Kluber can just manipulate the shape and depth of the pitch, but the ball acts differently enough when Kluber does this that he functionally has both, even if the catcher puts down the same sign for both. When his breaking ball behaved more like a curveball, it was a 50, a deep, but blunt, 80-82 mph curveball. The slider was one of the best I’ve ever seen, and Kluber threw a few 80-grade sliders in the outing, while most were 70s in the 83-85 mph range. These had more horizontal movement and, like everything else Kluber does, located with precision. I saw a few changeups that I thought were average.

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The State of West Virginia – or, rather, certain legislators in the State of West Virginia – have decided that they want to legalize sports gambling. This has created a kerfuffle in the Commissioner’s office, which has lobbied hard against the bill. Said Rob Manfred last Friday regarding the bill: “Major League Baseball and the other professional sports also have a strong interest, because it is, after all, our product that people are seeking to bet on… Unfortunately in West Virginia, there’s only one interested group that has dominated the substance of this bill, and that’s the gaming industry – the people seeking to make money from sports betting.” Manfred also voiced concerns that the proposed legislation doesn’t sufficiently protect gambling addicts.

Assuming West Virginia governor Jim Justice signs this bill, West Virginia will have legalized sports gambling. For our purposes, “sports gambling” means pretty much what it sounds like — things like betting on the outcome of baseball games. West Virginia wants to legalize it to make money off of it; fees and the like appended to sports gambling are expected to generate $30 million for the state’s coffers in just the first year.

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Mickey Haefner, man.

*****

That left-handed knuckleballer. Hit Ted Williams with a pitch in a tune-up game before Teddy’s only World Series. Williams said his arm “swelled up like a boiled egg,” whatever that means, then went just 5-for-25. All singles. Red Sox lost in seven. Thanks to ol’ Mickey.

*****

It wasn’t his idea to have the Red Sox scrimmage against the American League All-Stars while the National League had their best-of-three playoff to decide their World Series representative. Still. How did Ted Williams not have him killed? How did Mickey Haefner survive long enough to make history?

*****

*****

Paul Lukas admitted the bullpen historical record is imprecise. He also wrote that a 1950 newspaper report mentioning a “little red auto” was the first known instance of a report on bullpen vehicles. Then you found it: Chicago Tribune, July 6, 1950. You trust Lukas. You trust the Tribune. Cleveland 5, White Sox 2. Cleveland didn’t need a reliever that day. White Sox brought in Haefner first. Might as well figure it was Mickey freakin’ Haefner.

*****

That game was in Cleveland. The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball, 2d ed. sounds trustworthy and regal. Said Cleveland GM Hank Greenberg came up with the whole bullpen cart idea.

*****

Mickey damn Haefner.

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The prospect of a six-man rotation has either been discussed or confirmed by a number of clubs this offseason. The Angels will use one to help ease along Shohei Ohtani’s development as a pitcher. The Rangers also have plans to experiment with one (although Cole Hamels isn’t an advocate). Mickey Callaway mentioned at the beginning of February that the Mets might utilize six starters at points of the season.

The Rays, as they often do, are trying something different. In this case, they’ve announced plans to use just a four-man rotation in 2018.

#Rays Cash just said they could go with 4-man rotation all season, filling in with bullpen guys when needed to start

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) March 7, 2018

 

 

 

 

 

As manager Kevin Cash suggests here, it wouldn’t be pure four-man rotation. Instead, when a hypothetical fifth starter was needed, the club would just utilize relievers exclusively. So it’s four starters plus a bullpen game.

Given trends going in the opposite direction, this plan could lead to disaster, although it isn’t clear that the five-man rotation is obviously superior. Tampa Bay is in a fairly unique personnel situation, so there’s some logic behind the decision. The move isn’t likely to work, but it might be worth a shot.

When discussing the possibility of the Los Angeles Angels’ use of a six-man rotation, I noted the importance of having starting pitching depth and no ace. To effectively deploy a four-man rotation, the opposite is true; indeed, it’s the presence of an ace and little rotation depth behind him that give rise to the unique possibility. A team also requires a deep bullpen and multiple players with minor-league options, so that, whatever starting depth the club does possess, can be easily moved back and forth between the majors and minors.

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Free agency is supposed to be the reward. Of course, not every player gets treated the same, but, in general, free agency tends to reward good hitting. Mike Moustakas has blossomed into a pretty good hitter. Free agency tends to reward good fielding. Mike Moustakas has been a fine defensive third baseman. Free agency tends to reward winning experience. Mike Moustakas was part of a World Series champion. And, importantly, free agency tends to reward youth. Mike Moustakas is 29 years old. He’s just one year older than Eric Hosmer, who signed for massive terms with the Padres. It feels like it should’ve been there. It feels like Mike Moustakas should’ve earned his reward.

Moustakas is returning to the Royals. It’s a one-year contract, with a $6.5-million guarantee, and while there exists a second-year mutual option, those are never picked up. It was the Royals who extended to Moustakas a $17.4-million qualifying offer, which Moustakas, in turn, declined. Now he won’t come close to that money. There’s been talk for a while this market is strange, but the Moustakas terms in particular are jarring. It’s incredible that his free agency got to this point.

MLB Trade Rumors figured Moustakas would sign for five years and $85 million. The FanGraphs community figured he’d sign for five years and $85 million. Dave Cameron figured he’d sign for five years and $95 million. Now, Moustakas can still earn big money. He won’t have a qualifying offer attached next offseason, and another strong year would improve his stock. And, also, it’s easy to try to point things out after the fact. No one knew this was how Moustakas would end up. But, in hindsight, there were issues from the beginning. A variety of factors came together to prevent Moustakas from finding the commitment he wanted.

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TEMPE, Ariz. — The center-field fence at the Angels’ spring-training home sits 420 feet away from home plate. Beyond it are craggy, red-rock hills, and nearer but still beyond the playing field, a green, aluminum batter’s eye that has a height perhaps around 30 feet.

At Angels camp last week, I asked the club’s hitting coach, Eric Hinske, if he’s experienced any “Wow,” slack-jawed moments while observing the early days of Shohei Ohtani as a major-league hitter.

All the time, Hinske says.

“He hits the ball over the batting eye like with every swing in batting practice,” Hinske said.

To get a sense of what that swing looks like at its best, here’s footage of all Ohtani’s NPB home runs:

The power — at least the BP variety — is real.

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Justin Upton hits the ball in the air. Just over 63% of his batted balls were classified either as liners or flies in 2017, the 28th-highest mark among 144 qualified hitters. His career mark of roughly 60% is nearly as high. At a time where launch angle is all the rage, the 30-year-old outfielder is doing what a middle-of-the-order hitter is expected to do. That includes output. Upton is coming off a campaign where his loft-efficient right-handed stroke produced 109 RBIs (yes, those are still counted), a .540 slugging percentage, and a 137 wRC+.

It would be inaccurate to say that J-Up is following a trend.

“I don’t try to hit the ball in the air,” Upton told me recently at the Angels’ spring camp in Tempe. “To be brutally honest with you, I’ve never in my career tried to hit the ball in the air. I’ve always tried to hit line drives, and if you just miss a line drive it becomes a deep fly ball.”

He hits a lot of deep fly balls. The lucrative contract he signed with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in November came on the heels of a 35-dinger explosion. The total represented a career high, but it wasn’t an anomaly. Over the past five seasons, Upton has bopped 148 home runs, 11th most during that stretch.

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Everyone knows not to make too much of spring-training numbers. This is a time for everyone to be optimistic. Good results are signs of improvement; bad results are to be dismissed because, come on, the games don’t even count. No one takes this time of year too seriously. Not even the players! But especially the fans. Look around. The current league leader in batting average is Mike Freeman. The current league leader in OPS is Billy McKinney. The current co-league leaders in at-bats are Raimel Tapia and Sam Travis. The Marlins, at 7-4, have a better record than the Nationals and the Dodgers. This is all practice. It’s practice, with the pointless quirk of keeping score.

But a funny thing happens when you have enough high-level baseball players playing enough practice games. As noisy as all the individual numbers are, when the sample size gets large, you can start to see real signal. Even in spring training, baseball has a way of finding its level — spring numbers often predict what we’ll see league-wide the subsequent summer. As such, I’ve gone in to investigate, because I’m impatient. This year’s spring training is roughly 40% complete. The league is past 15,000 total plate appearances. What might we be able to tell about the 2018 regular season? The answers might surprise you. (They will not surprise you.)

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The Mariners made the Ichiro Suzuki signing official on Wednesday, returning the 44-year-old outfielder to the team for whom he starred from 2001 until mid-2012, when he was traded to the Yankees. Aside from a genuinely useful 2016 season in a part-time role — highlighted by his 3,000th major league hit — he hasn’t been a very productive player over the past five years, totaling 2.5 WAR over the span, and he may not have much to offer the Mariners beyond wisdom, leadership, warm fuzzies, and other soft factors. Still, there are worse ways to end a storied career, as Rian Watt pointed out when the news of Ichiro’s westward return first broke.

The history of such homecomings among Hall of Fame-bound players isn’t filled with many resounding successes, and in Seattle’s case, the most immediate example that comes to mind represents a worst-case scenario in this realm: an old, underperforming player outright embarrassing himself in some way, as Ken Griffey Jr. did in 2010. Junior hit just .184/.250/.204 without a homer before being released on June 2, shortly after he allegedly fell asleep in the clubhouse and missed a pinch-hitting opportunity. That’s no way to go, whether or not you’re a member of the 600 home-run club.

Via a quick skim through annals of the game, I counted 13 other stints in which a Hall of Famer wrapped up his career with a return to his original team, plus one that deserves an asterisk. That count doesn’t include players who finished with the team for whom they became stars after previously breaking in elsewhere, as was the case with Early Wynn coming back to the Indians, Dennis Eckersley to the Red Sox, or Fergie Jenkins and the Cubs. Nor does it include players who moved on again after their second stint with their original team, such as Greg Maddux with the Cubs, Tim Raines with the Expos, or Ivan Rodriguez with the Rangers. Listed chronologically, these are the most noteworthy.

Eddie Collins (A’s 1906-14, 1927-30)

During his first run with the A’s, the Columbia University-educated Collins played the keystone in Connie Mack’s “$100,000 Infield,” which led the team to four pennants and three championships. But after losing the 1914 World Series to the “Miracle” Braves, Mack broke up the team for financial reasons — one of the earliest tank jobs. Sold to the White Sox for $50,000, Collins spent 12 years on the South Side, helping the team to pennants in 1917 and 1919 (he was not part of the World Series fix), becoming the sixth player to collect his 3,000th hit in 1925, and serving as player-manager for that season and the next.

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Earlier, Travis Sawchik wrote about the struggles of the middle class in this free-agent market. Sawchik called attention to those players predicted by the FanGraphs community to sign for under $45 million, and he found that the actual terms have been significantly lower than expected. Sawchik highlighted eight players in the group who have done better than the forecasts, despite the trend around them. Something those eight players have in common? They’re all relievers.

For all the talk of how slowly the free-agent market progressed — and, I suppose, continues to progress — relievers have seemingly been the exception. Relievers have come off the board in droves, and even back around the winter meetings, when all anyone could think about was Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Ohtani finding new teams, relievers were finding contracts left and right. There was some obvious market enthusiasm, and to this point, free-agent relievers have signed for more money than free-agent starters. There are 24 relievers who have signed for multiple years, and that doesn’t count Mike Minor, who’s going to be tried as a starter again. One market is only one market, but still, what’s going on? It’s actually pretty simple to understand. You might even already know the answer.

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