I wrote last week about how, based on the early evidence, Patrick Corbin is McCullersing. That is, of course, a reference to Lance McCullers Jr., who has taught us that, if you have a really good pitch, you should just throw it a whole bunch more. McCullers has a great curveball, so he throws a lot of his curveball. Corbin has a great slider, so he’s started to throw a lot more of his slider. It’s a strategy that’s almost stupidly obvious, but it’s taken a while to catch on. Such is the power of baseball tradition.

There’s another way to think about this. You can throw more of a good pitch, but then, all the pitch rates have to add up to 100%. So if you’re throwing more of one thing, that has to come at the expense of something else. Typically, what we see is more secondary stuff, at the expense of fastballs. And this is how we get to talking about Masahiro Tanaka. Tanaka already pitches for a team that’s opted to de-emphasize the heater. But even within that context, Tanaka is extraordinary. Tanaka is working away from his hard stuff. He’s been doing this for a while already, but he’s gotten to the point where he’s throwing hard pitches as if he were a knuckleballer without a knuckleball.

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For a really long time, there was little doubt about the best pitcher on the planet. Clayton Kershaw has been on an epic run that will land him in the Hall of Fame. Over the past two seasons, Kershaw has still been brilliant, but he’s averaged 24 starts and 162 innings instead of 32 starts and 222 innings. That slight downturn in health has allowed arguments to pop up debating whether Kershaw is still the best pitcher in baseball. Last season, Max Scherzer was the takeover candidate of choice. The 2016 National League Cy Young winner followed up one great performance with another by claiming the award again. Ignored in those debates was a pitcher who has been better than both over the past two seasons and projects to be better this year: Corey Kluber.

On Monday, Kluber pitched eight scoreless innings, striking out 13 batters against one walk and just two hits. After three starts, Kluber’s ERA is 1.57, his FIP is 2.33, and he’s been worth 0.7 WAR. That’s great, but it doesn’t really separate him from a bunch of good pitchers off to great starts, including Scherzer, Dylan Bundy, and Gerrit Cole. Let’s extend to the past just a little bit more to get a sense of how Kluber has done lately. The table below shows the top pitchers by WAR since the All-Star Break last season.

Kluber is so far out ahead of the pack, the 1.3 WAR difference between him and Severino is nearly double the difference between Severino and 11th-place Scherzer. Combining his great second half with his strong start to this season, Kluber has struck out 169 batters and walked only 15. Since the All-Star Break last season, Kluber has been the best pitcher in baseball, and it isn’t particularly close. To really take a look at the best pitcher in baseball, it probably helps to take a bit of a longer view. Read the rest of this entry »

Last month in a piece for ESPN Insider, I was tasked with predicting what players might benefit from a change of scenery.

In that piece, this author cited a 2016 paper titled “Turning up by Turning Over” published in the Journal of Business Psychology, which studied 712 players who changed teams in the major leagues from 2004 to -15. The study concluded there are benefits for certain players in changing teams, particularly players that had been in decline. The study asserted there is a real change-of-scenery effect.

Maybe this effect is really just regression to the mean, teams acquiring players after down years. But there is perhaps something to be said for the energy and clean slate of a new environment. There’s also something to be said for being exposed to new ideas and colleagues. While Craig Edwards noted earlier today that the Pirates may have a new emerging ace, their former No. 1, Gerrit Cole, was one of the players I included in my piece about changes of scenery. I wasn’t alone in the belief, as many suspected, that he could benefit by moving to Houston.

And through two starts, the Astros, a team with an overwhelming collection of talent and a 100-win projection, look like they might be developing the last thing the rest of the American League wanted to see: another front-line pitcher.

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The baseball season, as people will often tell you, is a marathon, not a sprint. It might be even more like an ultra-marathon, one of those races that lasts a hundred miles in the middle of the desert. Once it gets going, the regular season feels like it goes on forever. The idea here is to downplay the significance of any short spurt. There’s an awful lot of time for the standings to normalize. At some point, every team will look very good, and every team will look very bad.

Now, I’ve never run a marathon, myself, but I do know that, among competitors, the splits are critical. When you’re trying to keep up with champion runners, it can be incredibly difficult to make up for a substandard start. That is, even in a marathon, a slow first mile is a problem. A fast first mile can be good or bad — this is where the comparison breaks down. It’s harder for a baseball team to over-tax itself in the first handful of games. But anyway, starts matter. The baseball season has started, and as a consequence of the results, we’ve already seen some numbers shift around.

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Xander Bogaerts has been on the major-league scene for so long that it’s easy to forget he’s still just 25 years old, young enough to be considered part of what is perhaps the best crop of young shortstops in the game’s history. He’s had his ups and downs through his four full seasons, with the second half of last year representing a particularly down one.

His recent trip to the disabled list with a non-displaced fracture of the talus bone in his left ankle might seem like a continuation of Bogaerts’ misfortune. But there’s good news: not only is the injury expected to keep Bogaerts sidelined for only 10 to 14 days but the shortstop’s performance to begin the season has rivaled Bryce Harper and Didi Gregorius as one of the young season’s best. What’s more: the underlying indicators suggest that a fundamental change is partially to credit for Bogaerts’ success.

Bogaerts injured the ankle during the seventh inning of Sunday’s 8-7 comeback victory over the Rays. He had mishandled a relay throw from J.D. Martinez, and sped towards the Tampa Bay dugout, on the third-base side of Fenway Park. He stopped the ball before it could roll into the dugout, which would have added another run onto the Rays’ 6-2 lead, but came up limping after sliding into the dugout himself. Adding insult to injury, Joey Wendle, who wound up on third after hitting the Green Monster shot that Martinez relayed, scored on a sacrifice fly anyway once Bogaerts departed, though the Red Sox rallied for six eighth-inning runs to steal the game and climb to 7-1 on the season.

On Friday, Bogaerts had been the hero in the Red Sox’ 10-3 win, driving in six runs with a two-run double and a grand slam, both off Jake Faria. The outburst ran Bogaerts’ league-leading doubles total to seven; throw in his two homers and only Gregorius has more extra-base hits. Through nine games, Bogaerts is hitting .368/.400..711, good for sole ownership or a share of third in the AL in slugging percentage, wRC+ (213), and WAR (0.7).

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The Pittsburgh Pirates traded two of their best players over the winter, signaling a potential rebuild and teardown of the team that made the playoff three consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2015. Andrew McCutchen, the organization’s most recognizable figure since Barry Bonds left town, was the more notable of the departing pair in terms of significance to the franchise. In terms of value in the the near future, however, Gerrit Cole was almost certainly more important.

Not only is Cole likely to produce more wins than McCutchen in a vacuum this season, but the disparity in talent between him and his replacements is also larger. While McCutchen is worth roughly a half-win more than Corey Dickerson and Corey Dickerson’s platoon partners, Cole is expected to outpace the fifth spot in the Pittsburgh rotation by at least two wins. This is the trouble with trading away a No. 1 starter: he’s replaced not by the pitcher right behind him on the depth chart but rather by whichever name formerly occupied the sixth spot in the rotation. For the Pirates, that’s probably some combination of Steven Brault, Tyler Glasnow, and maybe Trevor Williams.

So, in terms of overall wins, the Cole trade is almost certainly a net-minus for the Pittsburgh rotation. That said, it’s very likely that there will be no deficit for the club at the very front of the starting five. Despite Cole’s departure, an ace still remains in Pittsburgh. In light both of his track record and his first two starts of the current season, Jameson Taillon seems very capable of taking over for the departed Cole.

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I imagine we’ll be accused of writing clickbait. I imagine many websites will face the same accusation. And, sure, there’s probably plenty of bad Shohei Ohtani coverage out there. But, already, this is something special. Readers have possessed a voracious enthusiasm for consuming Ohtani articles. Writers have possessed a voracious enthusiasm for composing Ohtani articles. This is something that none of us have ever seen, and, if anything, Shohei Ohtani has exceeded the hype. Of course it’s still embarrassingly early. But, this is the best thing going. There is so much for us to see, and so much for us to learn.

There’s an argument that early analysis misses the point. That Ohtani is easy to appreciate, and perhaps best appreciated, with the eyes. He hits harder than almost anyone. He pitches harder than almost anyone. He’s playing his first-ever meaningful MLB games, and he’s arguably the greatest baseball talent Japan has ever had to offer. To this point, he’s been absolutely dominant on both sides, which is something long considered impossible. Ohtani shouldn’t be able to be this good. Players aren’t supposed to actually meet the runaway hype. Was Ohtani hyped…too…little? If you want to just let his beginning wash over you, I completely understand. In many ways this is bigger than regular baseball.

But I have a job to do. My job is to generate written baseball content, which can hopefully teach you something. If you’re interested, let me teach you something about Shohei Ohtani, the hitter. Everyone in baseball ends up with a scouting report. Ohtani, I guess, will have two of them. But, hitter Ohtani? Pitchers have already tipped their plan.

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The relationship between fans and the franchises for whom they root is something I’m going to examine over the next few weeks. The Marlins provide a case study in how to cultivate tension in that relationship.

The Marlins had themselves an eventful offseason, trading away Dee Gordon, Marcell Ozuna, Giancarlo Stanton, and Christian Yelich, among others. The fire sale was so extensive that the MLBPA filed a grievance against the team for misuse of revenue sharing, a development that I discussed here.

But that’s not all. As I’ve also noted, the City of Miami and County of Miami-Dade are suing Jeffrey Loria for purportedly denying them what they believe they are due of the net proceeds from the $1.2 billion sale of the Miami Marlins to the Derek Jeter/Bruce Sherman ownership group. The latest developments in that case include a request from the city for Loria’s tax returns in discovery — and Loria’s attorneys own request that the dispute be heard in arbitration rather than in court.

And even that’s not all. The offseason has also produced a minor fracas featuring Marlins Man, whose real name is Laurence Leavy, a successful Miami attorney best known for his steady presence behind home plate at every Marlins home game. After the Marlins rejected his most recent offer to renew his season tickets — $200,000 over three years — he declared himself a free agent and is expected to “sign” with, of all teams, the Detroit Tigers. Marlins representatives had what could be characterized as an interesting response to Leavy’s six-figure offer.

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How were your last seven days at work? Did you meet demanding, perhaps even impossible, expectations? While performing in unfamiliar surroundings? In front of literally millions of expectant eyes?

If not, then you probably failed to match Shohei Ohtani’s first full week as an employee in the United States.

To recap:

• Tuesday (as DH): 3 for 4, first MLB home run (off Josh Tomlin).
• Wednesday (as DH): 2 for 5, home run (off Corey Kluber).
• Friday (as DH): 1 for 4, BB, home run (off Daniel Gossett).
• Sunday (as pitcher): six perfect innings, a total of 12 strikeouts and just one walk over seven innings, 25 whiffs (including 15 whiffs via the splitter).

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After losing on a 14th-inning walk-off home run by the Giants’ Andrew McCutchen on Saturday, the Dodgers found themselves one swing of the bat away from falling to 2-7 to start the 2018 season — a pit that few teams escape, even in this age of expanded playoffs — during the 10th inning of Sunday’s game at AT&T Park. Fortunately, Kenley Jansen was finally able to tap into the mojo that’s made him one of the game’s best closers, striking out the Giants’ final two hitters to preserve a 2-1 victory, the Dodgers’ first win in a week. Even so, at 3-6, the defending NL champions are off to the worst start of any of the presumptive preseason favorites. How worried should they be?

The Dodgers entered 2018 just about as heavily favored to win their division as any team. But because Major League Baseball insists upon games being played on the field instead of on paper or pixel, things haven’t gone as planned, and they’ve matched the franchise’s worst start of the Wild Card era.

Now, nine games is a small sample size, obviously — just 1/18 of a season, in fact. While such a hiccup wouldn’t raise an eyebrow anywhere else in the schedule — each of last year’s 10 playoff teams went through at least one skid of 3-6 or worse, with the Dodgers themselves (in)famously losing 16 of 17 late in the year — it gets late early out here, as Yogi Berra allegedly said. Since the start of the 1995 season, 114 teams have begun the season 3-6, of which just 18 (including the 1996 Dodgers) made the playoffs. That’s 16%, which sounds high until you consider that, in the period during which two clubs from each league have qualified for the Wild Card, one-third of all teams makes the playoffs. Since 1995, 29% of all teams have done so. With apologies to the post-2001 Mariners, the dance just isn’t that exclusive.

Historically speaking, the real point of inflection through nine games is at 2-7, where just two Wild Card-era teams out of 37 (5.4%) have made the playoffs — namely, the 2001 A’s and 2007 Phillies. It’s four out of 54 (7.4%) if you count the two teams that began 1-8 (the 1995 Reds and 2011 Rays). Prior to the Wild Card era, just seven teams that started 2-7 made the playoffs, including two often referenced in the context of miraculous comebacks, the 1914 Braves and 1951 Giants. But these Dodgers aren’t in such dire straits yet.

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