My wife is a school psychologist here in the Pittsburgh area, so naturally I learn about the profession and the field. One test of interest, and some amusement, that she’s discussed involves children and the concept of delayed gratification. Testers use all sorts of sugar-laden incentives for the evaluation. The tester presents a child with a cookie or chocolate or something else and informs the four-year-old that, after a short period of time, if the child can avoid the temptation to indulge in the first snack, that said child will receive a second. (I’m not sure such a test of will power would be all that easy for adults, either.)

The study, I believe, traces its origins to the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment conduced in the late 1960s by psychologist Walter Mischel. The kids tested were given one marshmallow, and then a second if they were able to endure about a 15-minute wait. Follow-up studies found that the children who were able to wait generally had better life-outcomes, though the experiment is not without their critics. The Atlantic revisited the study in 2014:

Studies showed that a child’s ability to delay eating the first treat predicted higher SAT scores and a lower body mass index (BMI) 30 years after their initial Marshmallow Test. Researchers discovered that parents of “high delayers” even reported that they were more competent than “instant gratifiers”—without ever knowing whether their child had gobbled the first marshmallow.

While such a study and its small sample is, of course, imperfect, I think reasonable people can agree there are many merits to delayed gratification for children and adults.

So that brings me to the New York Yankees. The club is somewhat surprisingly resides in first place in the AL East more than a quarter of the way through the season, and boasts of the second-best run-differential in the American League (+53), trailing only the Astros (+58). BaseRuns suggests the Yankees actually deserve to be a game better than their actual standing (27-16).

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It’s that time again, when we provide your somewhat regularly scheduled update on the exploits of Mike Trout. When we last saw our protagonist, he was rocking a 210 wRC+ on April 24th. That was good enough for sixth best in baseball, but given that it was April 24th, we were sure to see some regression. Right?

Now it’s May 24th, and Mike Trout has a 220 wRC+. That’s the best in baseball. It means he’s been 120% better on offense than the league average. He’s twice the average offensive player and then some. Since he’s often considered to be a reincarnation of Mickey Mantle, it should be noted that Mantle never had a single season wRC+ that high, his best mark being a 217 in 1957. He was worth 11.4 WAR in 144 games.

Speaking of WAR, Trout’s accumulated a 3.3 mark so far this year. That naturally also leads the league by a fair margin and has taken Trout over the 50-win mark for his career. In doing so, he’s passed a number of all-time greats in total career value. Those players include Luis Aparicio, Orlando Cepeda, Fred Lynn, David Ortiz, and Jimmy Rollins. He’s very close to passing George Sisler and Enos Slaughter. He’s still got a few months until he turns 26.

Of course, it’s not surprising to see Trout playing this well. It’s not surprising that this past Monday’s game was only the seventh 0-for he’s taken over the first 42 games he’s played this year. (He still managed to walk twice.) It’s not shocking to see Trout playing out of his mind like this, or to know that the above homer from yesterday tied him for the big league lead in homers with Aaron Judge.

And that’s because he’s Mike Trout, the guy who’s already punched his ticket as one of the best players to ever play the game. He’s the guy who’s finished first or second in MVP voting in every full season he’s played, and arguably should have won every time. He’s been the most consistently great player in the game since the second he was called up in 2012. He’s among that extremely small percentage of players who shouldn’t be discounted from being able to carry a 200 (or larger) wRC+ for a whole season, because he’s simply that talented. And by typical player aging curves, Trout hasn’t even hit his prime yet.

Trout, as good as he’s been, has never finished a season having outpaced the league by this much. It’s important to note that it is, indeed, just May 24th, but Trout’s hitting profile looks pretty similar to what he’s produced in the past. He’s just simply hitting the ball with even more power. His walk and strikeout rates are generally the same as last year, and he’s basically taken just two percentage points of ground-ball rate and put them into fly-ball rate. The only marked difference is that his soft contact rate is somehow up to 20% from 12%.

Ben Lindbergh recently noted in an excellent piece of work at The Ringer that Trout is swinging more than ever, and that he’s swinging more often at meatballs in the middle. Swinging more often can sometimes be dangerous, but Trout is pulling it off with aplomb, as Ben noted.

In his first, brief exposure to the big leagues, Trout’s selective aggression ranked in the first percentile compared with qualifying hitters. He swung at fewer than half of the pitches he saw in the strike zone and almost a third of likely balls, showing relatively little ability to differentiate between pitches he could punish and pitches even he would have a hard time driving. His ratio improved in 2012 and again in 2013 and 2014 before regressing in 2015, when he was probably playing through a wrist issue. Last year and this year, his strike zone judgment has made further strides, to the point that he’s now in the 94th percentile — one of the game’s smartest swingers

Having a strong feel for the strike zone isn’t the only ingredient of offensive success: Plenty of hitters have the ability to distinguish balls from strikes but lack the coordination and power to make the most of that skill. But when a hitter with Trout’s physical gifts adds elite discipline to the mix, pitchers can’t counter. Thus far, they’ve thrown fewer pitches in the strike zone to Trout than ever before, but he’s not biting on bad pitches. Over the course of his career, Trout has produced a .465 weighted on-base average when swinging at pitches inside the strike zone and a .250 wOBA when swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. It makes perfect sense that he’d be even more potent now that he’s swinging at the former pitches more often and the latter less often.

Ben also pointed out that Trout is pouncing on first-pitch curves more than ever, which counters a previously popular method of attack against him. Trout is plugging the few tiny holes in his game, and it’s resulting in some dazzling production.

There’s probably going to be a bit of regression from the phenomenal offensive high he’s currently riding, but there isn’t reason to expect a ton of it. We’ve always wondered about the hypothetical of whether or not Trout has peaked yet, of whether or not there’s still room between his current state and the upper limit of his possible performance. That may be what we’re looking at right now. If Trout is reaching his physical peak, maybe that explains his .411 ISO, which is well above that even of the behemoth Judge.

Nothing should be surprising with Trout, except if perhaps if he took the mound and started striking people out. As I noted over the winter, he’s basically already a Hall of Famer. He’s just gotten even better now. Trout could very well come back down to his heightened version of reality at some point in the near or distant future, because it’s extremely hard to hit this well for an entire season. There have only been 32 instances of a qualified batter carrying a wRC+ of 200 or greater for a season. Many of those campaigns were had by men named Ruth, Bonds, and Williams. That’s how good Trout has been, and what kind of company he would have to keep to do this from now until October.

We shouldn’t put it past him. We shouldn’t expect him to do it, either, but we shouldn’t immediately discount it. Trout is a special player, and possibly the greatest to ever play the game. He’s the one thing keeping the Angels from being basement-dwellers.

He’s absolutely, incredibly, ridiculously great. We’re lucky to be able to watch him perform.

The Rays and the Angels have played more than anyone, all the way up at 47 games. There’s no major reason why they presently lead the league — it’s just noise, and everyone ends up in the same place. The Cardinals and the Twins will have to catch up eventually. They’re trailing behind, having each played just 41 games. The median right now is 44. We’re through more than a quarter of the regular season.

Small samples don’t feel so small anymore. They are small, at least relative to full-season data, but now we can more safely look for trends, for disappointments and surprises. It’s true on the player level, and it’s also true on the team level. For example, check out the surprisingly good Colorado Rockies! Or, check out the surprisingly disappointing San Francisco Giants. The records are all starting to mean something.

But, just how much do they mean? I have prepared for you a quick post. Before long, every team in baseball will reach the 50-game mark. I’ve chosen 50 because it’s nice and round and, well, that’s it. If you’ve been reading for a while, you’ll notice I’ve run a post like this before. Consider this an update, with new data. How much do those early records mean? How much more or less do they mean than the projections?

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So much is going well for the Yankees. Aaron Judge has exceeded everyone’s expectations. Aaron Hicks has found another level. Top prospect Gleyber Torres has been promoted to Triple-A. Luis Severino has a 21.1-point K-BB% mark. Michael Pineda owns an even better 24.5-point K-BB% mark — and finally has some better BABIP luck to go with his elite swing-and-miss stuff. Many believe, including this author, that it’s better than even odds that we will see Bryce Harper somewhere in the Yankee outfield in 2019. If feels like the next Yankee dynasty is taking shape.

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You’ve read enough articles over the years that you’re pretty well aware of the major trends within the game. Relative to history, strikeout totals keep climbing higher and higher. Fastball velocities keep climbing higher and higher, and the number of defensive shifts is on its own upswing. And, of course, there’s the recent home-run spike, which has seen the total dinger number skyrocket. This is the modern-day brand of baseball that we accept: there are more whiffs than ever, because there’s more heat than ever, but the reduced balls in play are at least partially offset by the balls that are leaving the yard. All of this is well and irrefutably established.

What if I told you that, right now, baseball is on pace for another all-time high? One that has nothing to do with homers or strikeouts or anything else. Would you be curious? It’s only natural that the answer would be yes — we all want to know what’s going on within the game. So, I’ll go ahead and let you in on the secret. But, let me forewarn you. It’s awfully stupid.

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Intro
We’re cutting the ribbon on the 2017 MLB Draft Sortable Board. The board will evolve and expand as we approach the draft, and Future Value grades will be added as the cement dries on player evaluations. For info on the 20-80 scale, by which the players are evaluated and, ultimately, the board is governed, bang it here. For info on Future Value, it’s strengths and flaws as a shorthand measurement, read this.

Thoughts on the Class Quality
The 2017 class is about average on overall talent and perhaps a bit below average as far as depth is concerned. The strength atop the class, despite Florida RHP Alex Faedo’s slightly diluted stuff, remains the terrific group of college pitchers who all have a chance to go in the top half of the first round. Faedo, Oregon LHP David Peterson, Louisville LHP Brendan McKay, Vanderbilt RHP Kyle Wright, and North Carolina RHP J.B. Bukauskas are all fairly easy to project as starters and have a chance to make up 33% of the top 15 picks. UCLA righty Griffin Canning also has consensus starter projection but lacks the stuff of those ahead of him and has been used heavily, at times throwing 120-140 pitches in a single start.

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While the save statistic and closer role are slowly being de-valued at the major league level, it’s still a significant statistic in your roto league. And of all the early-season turnover at the position, Brewers reliever is Corey Knebel is one of the more interesting arms to occupy the ninth inning. Regardless of role, in real-life baseball, he’s become one of the more interesting relief arms in the game. A FanGraphs reader in yesterday’s chat suggested Knebel might worthy of a post, and I am here to serve. Read the rest of this entry »

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Previously
Changeups: AL Starters / NL Starters.
Curveballs: AL Starters / NL Starters.
Cutters and Splitters: MLB Starters.
Four-Seamers: AL Starters / NL Starters.
Two-Seamers: MLB Starters.

With May running out of days, it’s about time we laid to rest our series evaluating the individual pitches of 2016 ERA-qualifying starting pitchers. By the end of the week, we’ll be done. I’m splitting up the final two articles in a slightly unorthodox manner in order to make them run about the same length. There were so many good sliders in the NL last season that they deserve their own article later this week. Today, it’s the sinkers in both leagues, plus the AL sliders.

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What makes Andrew Miller so good? There’s a variety of contributing reasons — there’s the velocity, the fastball, the slider, the delivery, the body, the mentality, and so on and so on. Every part of Miller comes together to make him nearly perfect. But, what’s the mechanism? What’s the statistical explanation for Miller’s dominance? In essence, he warps the hitter’s idea of the strike zone. Hitters don’t swing at many strikes, and they swing at too many balls. They have the statistical discipline of bad-hitting pitchers.

So far this season, Miller has gotten opponents to swing at pitches out of the zone 43% of the time. Once again, that’s super high — by O-Swing%, Miller ranks second in baseball. There’s one guy in front of him. That one guy is Anthony Swarzak?

Sure, why not. It’s 31-year-old journeyman and minor-league-contract acquisition Anthony Swarzak, pitching out of the White Sox bullpen. I’ve already written about how Tommy Kahnle is overachieving. Now here’s Swarzak, too, basically out of nowhere. I’ve got a plot for you.

That’s Swarzak in red. Compared to last year, his O-Swing% against has improved by 14 percentage points, and his Contact% against has improved by 15 percentage points. So Swarzak is way, way out there, having now adjusted well to full-time relief. Let me take that back; Swarzak has mostly relieved for a while. First he was a starter. Then he was a swingman. Last year, with the Yankees, Swarzak for the first time dramatically increased his slider rate, overtaking his number of fastballs. Swarzak has kept that up in 2017. The difference this time around is in location. The Yankees got Swarzak to change his pitch mix rather aggressively. The White Sox have gotten Swarzak to focus on one specific area around the plate.

From Baseball Savant:

Last season, Swarzak threw 63% of his pitches to the glove-side half, which was one of the higher rates around. This season, Swarzak has thrown 85% of his pitches to the glove-side half, which ties him for the highest rate in the league. The next-closest pitcher trails by more than 10 percentage points. Swarzak works righties away, all the time. He works lefties inside, all the time. He throws his fastball to the glove-side, and he throws his slider to the glove-side. His locations have gotten precise, and consistent, and hitters haven’t really known what to do.

In January, Anthony Swarzak was basically nothing. I’m going to guess he signed with the White Sox because he figured there he stood a better chance of getting a big-league opportunity. He was right! And for a month and a half he’s been one of baseball’s more effective relievers. I don’t know what to tell you. This is our shared reality. How about Anthony Swarzak?