On Wednesday, we ran Part 1 of what is planned as a three-part series chronicling Lars Anderson’s experiences in Japan. The 29-year-old adventure-seeker — a former top prospect in the Red Sox organization — is playing for the Kochi Fighting Dogs, an independent team in the Shikoku Island League. Here is Part 2.
Jose Altuve is a conventional contender for the MVP award, but at the same time, he really isn’t. As the best player on the best team in the American League — by a fairly large margin — Altuve checks off the two biggest boxes some voters use when filling out the ballot. He’s also a bit non-traditional, as he doesn’t hit a whole lot of homers or drive a ton of runners in. While he doesn’t have the typical power numbers of an MVP-winner, his overall line and overall value are immense, and he just pulled off one of the best hitting months of the last half-decade.
In the month of July, Jose Altuve hit .485/.523/.727, good for a wRC+ of 242, highest for any player in a month this season with a minimum of 80 plate appearances. Since 2002, the only player with a higher batting average in a month was Ivan Rodriguez, who hit .500 back in June of 2004.
We know that batting average has its flaws, and it might seem disappointing to find out Altuve’s .523 OBP only ranks 36th in any month since 2002. However, 13 of those months are courtesy of Barry Bonds. When we look at Altuve’s overall hitting numbers and account for park and era, that 242 wRC+ ranks 23rd, with Barry Bonds taking the top four slots and one more in the top-15. Since 2012, here are the best 11 months by a hitter:
Last night, Rafael Devers played his eighth game in the Major Leagues since being called up to fix Boston’s third base problem. In that eighth game, he recorded his 13th hit. It looked like this.
Exactly two months ago, I posted my first in-season BIP-based park factor update. BIP-based, you say? Basically, I’ve taken every batted ball hit in every park, applied major league average production for its exit speed/launch angle bucket, incorporated run values, and scaled the resulting projected production to an average of 100. It’s now time for midseason update #2, as of the All Star break.
Frank Herrmann is acclimating well to baseball in Japan. In his first season in NPB, the 33-year-old Harvard alum has a 2.08 ERA, and is averaging better than a strikeout per inning, in 36 relief outings for the Rakuten Golden Eagles.Prior to taking his talents to another continent, Herrmann appeared in 36 games with the Cleveland Indians and Philadelphia Phillies over parts of four MLB seasons.
Herrmann shared his thoughts on several facets of the NPB experience — and compared one of his Rakuten teammates to Masahiro Tanaka — earlier this week.
During this series of articles that have comprised my FanGraphs Residency, I have updated my analysis of the free-agent market that I last researched over three years ago. The vast majority of my new findings have suggested that teams have gotten smarter about spending in line with true player talent, all the while spending roughly the same share of league revenue as they were spending before.
Perhaps my biggest finding is that the OPP Premium has declined. Teams used to receive significantly less WAR for signing other team’s players as they did for re-signing their own players, and this seemed largely related to private information that teams knew about their own players. As teams have become more aware of this phenomenon, the evidence suggests that they have become more careful and have driven up the price of their own players while being more reluctant to sign players on other teams.
This is especially true for pitchers, who used to have the largest OPP Premium. Hitters appear to have actually increased their OPP Premium, which is probably more related to a handful of expensive players who did not pan out rather than teams collectively getting sloppier about signing hitters.
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The man with a 96 mph fastball and devastating changeup looks more himself these days. Danny Salazar is back up with the Indians, dealing, and was even name-checked by his General Manager as a deadline acquisition that should make their rotation hum this postseason. It could just be two good starts, but his pitching mix is radically changed. And though that change looks drastic, the driver of change might actually be more subtle.
If you read this past Sunday’s notes column, you know that Lars Anderson is playing for an independent league team in Japan. The adventure-seeking former big-leaguer — and his Kochi Fighting Dogs teammate Manny Ramirez —were featured prominently. I concluded the segment by saying that we’d hear more from Anderson about his experiences playing baseball on the other side of the world in the near future.
As promised, here is the first installment of Lars Anderson Discovers Japan.
Is there anyone having a weirder season than Masahiro Tanaka? Dude is in the top fifteen when it comes to strikeouts minus walks, and yet he’s got an ERA over five. He’s been better recently! And he’s done it by… refusing to throw fastballs. Despite this wrinkle, he’s still giving up nearly two home runs per game. We haven’t even gotten to the weird day/night splits, but they’re part of the story, too. Weird.
Back in 1906, the Chicago Cubs won 116 games, lost just 36, and put up a .763 win percentage equivalent to 124 wins in a 162-game schedule. Over the next 50 or so years, three other teams won at least 110 games, and another 11 posted at least 105 wins in a season. In 1961, Major League Baseball added eight more games to the schedule, giving us the 162-game schedule that we have today. Over the next 55 years, only two teams won more than 110 games, with more teams equaling greater parity, making it tougher to put up gaudy win totals. The New York Yankees put up a modern-day record 114 wins in 1998 on their way to a World Series title, but they were bested by the 2001 Seattle Mariners, who tied the all-time record by winning 116 games on their way to not winning the World Series. The Los Angeles Dodgers are perhaps the first team since with a shot at topping the 1906 Cubs and 2001 Mariners. The Dodgers have a shot at 117.
After all the moves at the trade deadline, the Dodgers’ record stood at 74-31, a .705 winning percentage, best in all of baseball by a healthy margin over the Houston Astros. If we assume the Dodgers would just win games at the same rate going forward, the team would end up with 114 wins. Here are a few different scenarios for LA going forward:
While outplaying their projections by the seven games necessary to tie the record and eight games better to beat the record isn’t exactly likely, their record thus far, especially since mid-May indicates it is something the team is capable of. Losing Clayton Kershaw for any amount of time is certainly a blow, but picking up Yu Darvish and getting massive reinforcements for the bullpen certainly lessens that loss and could make the team even better. Read the rest of this entry »