On September 1, Byron Buxton returned from a stint in Triple-A and proceeded to go 15 for 37 with five home runs over 10 games. Talking to him at the tail end of that stretch, I got a good feel for what was driving his success. The 22-year-old phenom was just playing baseball.

When expectations are sky-high, that’s easier said than done. Buxton was drafted second overall by the Minnesota Twins in 2012, and shortly thereafter he was ordained as the game’s No. 1 prospect. Media attention was heavy. Every success and failure was scrutinized. Being Byron Buxton was burdensome.

That’s slowly changing. Buxton told me that this is “probably the least attention,” he’s received since turning pro. He still feels pressure to perform, but at the same time, it’s easier for him to “not worry about what people are saying, or expecting.”

He admits to pressing early in the season. He also owns up to getting away from what comes natural. Read the rest of this entry »

One month ago, Tyler Clippard discussed Beating BABIP and the Limits of FIP in these very pages. He cited his ability to create plane as a big part of his success. The Yankees reliever effectively induces weak contact with a 91-mph riding fastball and a combination of changeups and splitters.

Clippard always has insight to offer, so I followed up on our earlier conversation when New York returned to Boston a few weeks ago. The subjects at hand were pitch usage and effectively changing eye levels.

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Clippard on if pitchers should throw their “best” pitch a higher percentage of the time than they do: “That’s a good question. I mean… I’m always trying to mix it up and have really good variance on what I’m throwing. That way hitters can’t sit on one pitch. If you are throwing your best pitch, regardless of how good it is, over 60% of the time, I feel like you’re giving the hitter a better chance. Granted, that pitch might be one of the best pitches in baseball — it’s tough for the hitters to hit, even if they know it’s coming — but to me, it just works against what pitching is.

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There’s a danger in waiting to write a post about how the narrative surrounding a particular statistic, because the statistics are always changing. I’ve been meaning to write a post about the Atlanta Braves for a while, and specifically, the Atlanta Braves’ offense. I got the inspiration to write about the Braves offense last week, when some sorting of leaderboards for an entirely differnet topic led me to the realization that the Braves had had baseball’s best second-half offense, up until that point. “The Braves Have Had Baseball’s Best Something” would be the headline, and I would take a look at all the young, exciting players that have fueled this second-half surge for the Braves, and how it bodes well for the future of their rebuild.

Well, things change. The Braves no longer have had baseball’s best anything, because they no longer have baseball’s best second-half offense. That honor goes to the Dodgers. The Braves have now had baseball’s second-best second-half offense, and that’s not nearly as compelling a title. And the more I looked into it, my hypothesis for a narrative just didn’t hold up anyway. Honestly, in the grand scheme of things, this second-half offensive surge by Atlanta isn’t all that interesting. The part that’s interesting is that Freddie Freeman has been so damn good, he’s tricked an entire team into appearing compelling.

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With postseason awards ballots due in a few days, we’re getting a bunch of writers publishing their hypothetical votes today, including national writers like Ken Rosenthal and Jon Heyman. As has become an annual custom, one of the primary points of contention is whether to give the AL MVP to Mike Trout, far and away the best player in the game.

Rosenthal, who definitely ascribes value to playing on a contender, stumps for Trout anyway.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I prefer my MVP to come from a contender. A preference, though, is not an absolute. Trout has been the best by such a wide margin — his OPS is nearly 100 points higher than Betts’, thanks to his league-leading .441 on-base percentage — it would be foolish to deny him.

Heyman takes the more traditional path, arguing for Mookie Betts because he had better teammates, even though he puts Trout second, ahead of plenty of other good players on winning teams. In support of his belief that it’s close enough to give the edge to the guy was fortunate enough to get drafted by the well-run organization, Heyman puts for this argument.

Some say his age-23 season has been comparable to Joe DiMaggio’s. I’m not sure about that. But it’s good enough to take the AL MVP in a tight, tough, interesting year. He gets the nod over David Ortiz for playing defense (and an outstanding right field), and he gets it over Trout as he was almost as brilliant as Trout (9.5 WAR compared to Trout’s 10.2). That 0.7 extra WAR (based mostly on more walks) isn’t enough to disregard how Betts helped his team win baseball’s best division, and dominated games in the division, especially against the Orioles.

In the blurb on Trout finishing second, he repeats the claim that the difference is just some walks, saying “But his numbers are almost identical to those of Betts, except for the walks.”

Now, sure, that’s one way to look at it. If you just look at the traditional baseball card numbers, they are very similar.

But just for fun, let’s add another traditional baseball number to the column. It’s not going to be anything scary. It’s not a formula. It’s a counting stat, just like home runs and RBIs.

Heyman framed the difference as just some walks, and because walks are easy to dismiss — they’re not driving in runners, the guy didn’t really do anything to earn them, it’s just the pitcher being wild, etc… — it’s a good way to pretend that Betts and Trout have had similar offensive seasons. But instead of talking about walks, what if we just called them something else; non-outs. Because we know outs are bad, right? When a guy on the team we’re rooting for makes an out, we’re sad, because that means that our team’s offense has fewer chances to score the rest of the inning.

Mookie Betts has made 86 more outs than Mike Trout this year; in fact, Betts is sixth in the AL in outs made. Now, certainly, some of that is because he’s just hit a lot; his 718 plate appearances are second most in the AL, as the Red Sox offense has turned over the lineup frequently, allowing Mookie to come to the plate 49 more times than Trout, despite playing in the same number of games. But even Trout magically batted 49 more times than Betts this weekend, and made outs in every single one of those plate appearances, he’d still be almost 40 outs behind Betts on the season.

Betts has made three full games — plus a few leftover — worth of outs more than Trout has this season. That is an enormous difference, and can’t just be hand-waved away as “some walks”. And that’s why Trout is crushing Betts in any kind of calculation of offensive runs produced this year.

wRC is closer than the rest because, as a counting stat with a base of zero, it isn’t accounting for opportunities, so Betts’ extra trips to the plate help him rack up some more value. In the other three, where an average hitter is the baseline, Trout pulls away, as he produced more raw offensive value while using many fewer outs to get there.

OFF is the combination of park-adjusted batting and baserunning value, and here, Trout has a 26 run lead. Twenty-six runs is almost three wins. The idea that it’s a close race when you look at their batting lines is simply factually incorrect. The 86 out difference makes it entirely clear that Trout trounced Betts as a hitter this year. That’s nothing against Mookie, who I continue to love; Trout trounced everyone as a hitter this year.

So while I appreciate Heyman looking at WAR in determining his ballot, the reality is that the argument that it’s a close race depends entirely on the acceptance of an enormous gap in defensive value as measured by Defensive Runs Saved, which is the fielding component used in Baseball-Reference’s WAR, which Heyman is citing. DRS gives Betts credit for 32 runs saved — 10 runs more than the next best player, Adam Eaton — which is almost double his +17 UZR.

Betts is clearly a fantastic defensive player, and he deserves credit for his all around game, but the reality is that the argument that Betts and Trout have had similar 2016 seasons is an argument for accepting the validity of single-season DRS at face value. We’ve probably done more to advocate for the acceptance of stats like UZR and DRS as anyone, but even I wouldn’t look at Betts’ 2016 defensive numbers and argue that we should accept that he was the best defender in baseball this year, and far more valuable defensively than Trout, who still plays the more demanding defensive position.

And unlike single-season defensive metrics, which continue to have some noise influencing their results, we can very easily identify the offensive difference between Trout and Betts. It wasn’t just “some walks”; it was 86 outs made. And those 86 outs are why, with all due respect to Betts as a great player who had a great season, it isn’t really all that close this year.

Trout was the best player in baseball, by a lot. If you want to give the award to Betts because he plays on a winning team, we can’t stop you, but let’s not pretend that Betts and Trout had similar offensive seasons. When it comes to offensive production in 2016, it’s Trout, a huge gap, and then everyone else.

Baseball matters this weekend, in as much as it ever truly matters. The division races are decided, but the Wild Card races in both leagues provide plenty of reasons to tune in and root for whatever outcome pleases your baseball-loving sensibilities. As things stand right now there are 13 teams with hopes of postseason play, but a week from now only eight teams will remain. Stakes don’t get much higher than that.

But the postseason pool is not the only thing that will be finalized this weekend (or, if #TeamEntropy gets its way, early next week). In a few days, the regular season will come to a halt and 2016 stat lines will be frozen forever. Is a batter a 30-home-run guy or did he stop at 29? A .300 hitter or a .299? A sub-3.00-ERA pitcher or one with a 3.03 ERA? These trivial distinctions will be determined over the next few days.

What should you watch this weekend? The playoff races. Obviously. It’s exciting and it’s thrilling. But if you’re a weirdo with an affinity for the trivial side of this sport like me, there are a few other things to keep your eye on this weekend. Here are the four I’ll be watching most closely:

The Dodgers’ Strikeout Rate

Two pitchers in major-league history have finished a career (min. 3000 IP) with a strikeout rate above 25%: Randy Johnson (28.6%) and Nolan Ryan (25.3%). The 2016 Dodgers currently have a 25.2% strikeout rate as a team. That’s right, the revolving door of healthy and injured pitchers has resulted in a Dodgers pitching staff that has struck out batters at a rate roughly equivalent to Nolan Ryan’s career rate.

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As you’re no doubt aware, it’s been a hell of a season in Texas. The Rangers own the best record in the American League, with the eighth-best run differential. They’ve destroyed their Pythagorean record, which has caused them to destroy their BaseRuns record. Much of this has been fueled by historic success in one-run games, and much of that has been fueled by historically clutch hitting. Teams are successful every year, but the Rangers have followed an unusual course. It’s been simultaneously thrilling and bizarre, something difficult for analysts to explain. At this point, there might not be any sense in trying.

There’s one more nugget I want to throw on top of the others. For the reasons detailed above, this Rangers season has been truly exceptional. It’s hard to imagine a team drawing it up like this. Yet there’s another split you might have trouble believing. I know I did! Which is why I’m writing this in the first place. I don’t really know what it means, but I can’t not bring it to your attention.

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The numbers are almost laughable. In a season when over 100 players have hit 20 home runs, Clayton Kershaw has put up a line for the ages. Through Tuesday: a 1.65 ERA, 1.67 FIP, a nearly unthinkable 168:10 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The only blemish is his low innings total, resulting from the back injury that cost him a substantial part of the summer. With no one seeming to run and hide with the NL Cy Young Award, it’s only natural to ask whether Kershaw might still be a worthy recipient of the hardware.

Last week, I used granular batted-ball data to measure the contact-management performance of all ERA-qualifying NL starters. This group did not include Kershaw. In that article I referred to my hypothetical Cy Young ballot, if it were limited to only qualifiers; that ballot would have been headed by two above-average contact managers with very strong K/BB profiles, Max Scherzer and Kyle Hendricks. Today, we add Kershaw to that mix, comparing him to those two pitchers, again utilizing exit-speed/launch-angle data in our analysis.

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In a good way, Francisco Liriano is making life more complicated for the Blue Jays. Not that a team should take anything for granted, but as the Jays look ahead to the playoffs, it’s hard to know exactly which starters could and should serve as their starters. The Jays already had some depth when Liriano arrived as something of a salary dump, but a funny thing has happened — Liriano has found himself after leaving Pittsburgh. He’s slashed his walk rate, he’s upped his strike rate, and his ERA with Toronto is 2.92. Liriano looks good again, and he looked terrific Wednesday night.

Ultimately, for the Blue Jays, Wednesday was disappointing. They suffered through a blown save and a loss, and they still haven’t locked up an actual playoff spot. There’s work to be done, and because of the ninth-inning collapse, moments from Liriano’s start earlier have been forgotten. They simply can’t matter that much if the end result was a loss to a rival. I want to bring something to your attention, though. In the fifth inning, Liriano came through with a crucial strikeout of Chris Davis. In that showdown, Liriano took a hell of a chance, and the gamble paid off.

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Trea Turner is squaring up a lot of baseballs. He’s also flying around the bases. The 23-year-old Washington Nationals rookie has a dozen home runs, seven triples, and 29 stolen bases in just 68 games. His slash line is a sexy .340/.362/.560. In a nutshell, he’s been very, very good.

He’s also thoughtful when the subject turns to hitting. The North Carolina State product likes to keep thing simple, but at same time, he has a nuanced feel for his craft. Launch angle is a familiar term, and he understands that what works for Daniel Murphy isn’t necessarily going to work for him. He isn’t going to tailor his swing for pull-side home runs. Nor is he going to take advantage of his plus-plus wheels by slapping and burning like a young Juan Pierre. Turner is going to be himself, and based on early returns, that’s an All-Star-caliber player.

Turner — currently manning center field after reaching Washington as a second baseman — talked about his hitting philosophy when the Nationals visited Pittsburgh over the weekend.

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Turner on his approach: “For me, it’s really situational. It depends on different things. Am I leading off the inning? Are there are runners in scoring position? Does the pitcher on the mound have good command or bad command? Am I going good or going bad? There are a lot of questions I ask myself. Based on the answers to those questions, I’ll have an approach. You have to play it by ear.

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If the New York Mets finish the 2016 season as world champions, they’ll have done it with a drastically different approach than the one with which they began the year. See, the Mets are something like a bat-first team now. Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, and now Steven Matz won’t pitch again until 2017, and while they’ve still got Noah Syndergaard and a suddenly impressive bullpen, it’s the offense that’s really carried their second-half resurgence. Since the All-Star break, the Mets have baseball’s seventh-best wRC+, among non-pitchers. Over the last month, they’ve had baseball’s third-best offense by that same measure.

And so, barring some unforeseen heroics from the likes of Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo, it seems that the World Series aspirations in New York that began with the starting rotation now fall heavily on the starting lineup. If the Mets want to win this thing, they might have to slug their way there, the way Daniel Murphy nearly did for them last postseason. The Mets probably don’t love the fact that they opted not to go the extra year on Murphy in free agency and saw him not only go to a division rival in Washington, but go on to build off last postseason’s success and become potentially the best hitter in the National League. But even though the super-charged Murphy will now play for the Nationals in the postseason, the Mets suddenly have a super-charged middle infielder of their own in Asdrubal Cabrera.

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