Jose Berrios is having a breakout season. In 13 starts for the Minnesota Twins, the 23-year-old right-hander has a 3.50 ERA, and he’s won nine of his twelve decisions. His breaking ball is a big reason. It’s a plus pitch, and certainly not run-of-the mill.

I recently had the following exchange with Twins pitching coach Neil Allen:

How would you describe Berrios’s breaking ball?

“It’s Bugs Bunny. It’s pretty darn good.”

Is it a curveball or a slider?

“It’s a little bit of both.”

Chris Gimenez had a less-catchy, but every bit as compelling, response to the same question(s).

“It’s a curveball, but he can make it a little more slider-ish when he’s really trying to wrench it down and away from a right-hander,” said the Minnesota backstop. “It’s the closest I’ve seen to Corey Kluber’s curveball, and to Yu Darvish’s slider. I’ve had a chance to catch both of those guys, and that’s some pretty elite company to be in.”

Curveballs and sliders are obviously classified differently, so I asked Gimenez to elaborate. Read the rest of this entry »

Heading into the year, the Mariners plan seemed to be to acquire as many low-ceiling middling prospects as they could find and throw them all at the wall, hoping one or two would help stabilize the back end of the team’s rotation. Over the last year and change, they’ve acquired and started Ariel Miranda, Dillon Overton, Chase De Jong, Chris Heston, Christian Bergman, and Ryan Weber. Thanks to a .220 BABIP, Miranda’s been a reasonable enough starter for the team, but most of the other guys made a few low-quality appearances and were then shipped back to Triple-A.

But the Mariners are apparently undeterred, and are trying this strategy one more time.

#Mariners acquire LHP Marco Gonzales from St. Louis for minor league OF Tyler O’Neill.

— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) July 21, 2017

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The other day in the Giants’ clubhouse, I told Jeff Samardzija he was close to setting a record. “I don’t want to hear about it,” laughed the amicable righty. “No, no, a good one,” I pointed out, informing him of how he’s close to recording the best strikeout-to-walk figure of all time.

“Doesn’t mean I don’t have plenty to figure out,” he responded back.

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It’s been an utterly lost season for the San Francisco Giants. Sure, it’s not an even year, so finding the Giants outside of the playoff mix isn’t a total shock, but the second-worst record in baseball? Not exactly what Bay Area fans had in mind.

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This is Matt Swartz’ fifth piece as part of his July residency at FanGraphs. A former contributor to FanGraphs and the Hardball Times — and current contributor to MLB Trade Rumors — Swartz also works as consultant to a Major League team. You can find him on Twitter here. Read the work of all our residents here.

When I tell people about my side career as a baseball analyst, they frequently ask me of what research I’m most proud. The answer? The work I did establishing that teams receive fewer WAR per Dollar when signing free agents away from other teams than when re-signing their own players.

My clearest and most thorough analysis of this topic came in the 2012 Hardball Times Annual. The results were initially met with strong skepticism when I published a post on the topic at Baseball Prospectus back in 2010. It took a couple years of evidence before I was able to persuade the sabermetric community that it was true — and, more importantly, that the reason for this phenomenon was that teams re-signing their own players had better information on them.

My 2012 Hardball Times Annual article tested and confirmed that this held true for a variety of players. Traded MLB players and traded minor-league prospects both tended to underperform their projections when compared to untraded players.

What’s the significance of this discovery? Generally speaking, it means that an “average” player who reaches free agency is overvalued by his projections relative to another “average” player who doesn’t reach free agency. So much of sabermetric analysis involves looking at free agents. Suddenly, I had research indicating that such analysis was based on a biased sample. The results immediately colored every potential free-agent signing. With every free agent I encountered afterward, I began asking myself: “is there some reason this player’s original team let him go?”

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Faced with an expensive market for premium starting pitching, but in possession of one of the least effective rotations in the majors, the Twins are reportedly close to finalizing a deal for left-handed Braves pitcher Jaime Garcia.

Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press has more information:

The Braves would pick up less than half of Garcia’s remaining obligation, the person with direct knowledge said, but that figure was still being discussed along with which player or players the Twins would surrender. Medical reports were still being evaluated as well, but the deal was said to be “very close to final.”

Entering Friday, the Twins (48-46) are surprisingly just a half-game behind the Indians, the reigning AL champs and and heavy division favorites. The Twins are also just a game behind the Yankees for the second Wild Card spot in what is expected to be a bit of a log jam. So there’s some cause for optimism.

At the same time, however, Minnesota ranks 25th in the majors in BaseRuns win percentage (.438), suggesting they’ve benefited considerably from sequencing. Entering Friday, FanGraphs expects the Twins to finish with 78 wins and 84 losses. Overall, the club possesses a 10.6% probability of reaching the postseason according to FanGraphs’ playoff odds — and a 2.6% chance of capturing the division. The projections, in other words, don’t have much belief in the current roster.

So with 68 games to play, the Twins find themselves in a somewhat delicate position, in close proximity to a postseason berth but quite possibly lacking the roster to really go for it.

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I don’t know if the Cubs are actually coming out of their funk, but it sure looks like they are. It feels like a matter of days before they re-claim first place in the NL Central, which is the outcome we’ve all long expected. There’s still work to do yet, but as the Cubs improve, it sends more eyes over to the Indians. The Indians have been in a funk of their own, and while they’re already sitting in first, they’ve been unable to shake the Twins and the Royals. Even the Tigers remain within conceivable striking distance, and they’ve begun to sell. The Indians were supposed to be better than this, and the clock, as a clock does, is ticking.

Struggling team? Check. Trade deadline approaching? Check. Observers are wondering how the Indians might look to get better in the week and a half ahead. One thought has been that the club could look to add another starting pitcher. With Danny Salazar about to return from injury, perhaps that wouldn’t be necessary. But for me, the key isn’t the return of Salazar. Rather, it’s the emergence of Mike Clevinger. Clevinger has stepped up in a big way, giving the Indians more than they thought they might have.

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The Marlins? They’re out of it. At some point it seemed like they might have a chance, but now they’re out of it, ever so out of it, so they’ve gone into sell mode. The Marlins are used to being in sell mode. The Mariners? They’re not out of it. They’re out of it within their own division, but they’re close to a wild-card spot, like a lot of the American League. They’re close despite dealing with a thin and injured pitching staff. The Mariners are simultaneously too good to sell, and too bad to buy hard. Not to mention the farm isn’t good enough to buy hard anyway. The Mariners haven’t appeared to have that many options.

Put it all together, and that’s how you get a trade like this:

Mariners get

• David Phelps

Marlins get

• Brayan Hernandez
• Brandon Miller
• Lukas Schiraldi
• Pablo Lopez

The Mariners could really use a starter. But also, they could really use a reliever, and Phelps remains under team control for 2018. So, he’s not just some kind of stretch-run rental. And although he’s no Kenley Jansen, he’s pretty good and awfully interesting. The price is four guys from the low minors. We shouldn’t pretend like any of us have any idea what they’re going to become. It’s another Jerry Dipoto exchange of low-level depth for high-level, shorter-term security.

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A few weeks ago, we heard from Baltimore infielder Manny Machado on how he prepares for an upcoming series. Today, we explore the subject from a pitcher’s perspective. On the same day I spoke to Machado, I asked Orioles right-hander Dylan Bundy about how he goes about readying himself for his next start.

Like most every other member of a rotation, Bundy throws a bullpen session between starts, and he follows that up by watching video and reading scouting reports. But not every pitcher goes about those things the exact same way. Bullpen routines differ, as do the approaches to studying opposing lineups. Here is how Bundy does it.

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Dylan Bundy on preparing for a start: “Not every bullpen is the same. Some days I go out there knowing my curveball wasn’t very good in my last start, so I’ll work on my curveball that day. But most of the time, I’m throwing fastballs and changeups, and that’s it — 20 to 25 pitches. I have a basic routine. At least the first nine or 10 pitches are usually fastballs — up, down, in, out — and then I’ll throw four or five changeups. If I feel great after that, I’ll shut it down. If not, I’ll throw a few more pitches.

“Sometimes my body isn’t feeling all that great — the ball isn’t coming out the way I want it to — so I’m not going to work on pitches. I’m not going to work on things like movement, or even location, because I don’t have my body in the right shape to do all that stuff. That day, I’m just kind of moving. I’m throwing pitches and loosing up my arm and my body. I’m working mechanically, trying to feel the way I need to feel for the next game I’ll be starting.

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No matter how you look at Michael Fulmer, you’ll probably come away impressed. Today’s Tigers starter is making good on his sophomore season and currently has the 10th-best ERA among qualified starters. But if you look at strikeouts and walks, traditionally thought of as the outcomes over which a pitcher exerts the most control, Fulmer is 43rd best among that game group. Which ranking is more indicative of his true talent? His changeup might have the answer.

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