On Monday, Rays’ infielder Michael Brosseau took the mound. On Sunday, it was Brewers infielder Hernán Pérez, and before him, Diamondbacks catcher Alex Avila on Saturday, and Reds infielder Jose Peraza on Friday. On Thursday, which now seems so long ago — seriously, do you remember what you had for dinner that night? — it was Yankees first baseman Mike Ford. If you think that home run and strikeout rates have gotten out of hand, consider the tally of position players pitching.

While teams are producing homers at a per-game rate 12% higher than the previous record (set in 2017), and while per-game strikeout rates are on the rise for the 14th straight season (up about 3% relative to last year), the single-season record for position player outings (65, set just last year, and no, that count doesn’t include Shohei Ohtani) fell earlier this month. Already, position players have taken the hill a total of 78 times this season; prorated to a full schedule, that’s 101 outings, a 55% increase on last year. And if things were to continue at the blistering pace we’ve seen since the All-Star break — 33 appearances in 39 days — the number would soar higher than the drive the Indians’ Carlos Santana hit off Ford:

Whew. Traditionally, a position player pitching appearance has been a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency desperation move (generally in extra innings) or a lighthearted farce that draws attention away from an otherwise unpleasant blowout. Through some combination of higher-scoring games, higher per-game totals of relievers, concerns about reliever workloads, and the reduced stigma of this particular maneuver, the rate of such appearances has accelerated. Like the barrage of homers and strikeouts, whether or not the higher frequency takes the fun out of it is rather subjective. To these eyes, the novelty is in the absurdity, like imagining a dog penning this article, and the bordering-on-routine nature of this year’s appearances has dimmed some of the luster. Even so, it’s an interesting enough subject to dwell upon for a few minutes.

For starters, here’s the progression for the past decade:

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Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Trevor Cahill, Marco Gonzales, and David Phelps— on how they learned and developed their curveballs.

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Trevor Cahill, Los Angeles Angels

“I didn’t throw my [current] curveball until my second year in the big leagues. I used to throw the double-knuckle — I didn’t spin it; I would literally flick it — and that worked in the minor leagues. It was actually my strikeout pitch. But once I got up here, I couldn’t really throw it with the big-league ball. Not consistently.

“The seams in the minor leagues were bigger, and that made a difference. Plus, big league hitters are more patient. I used to throw that pitch in the dirt a lot, and get swings, but I had trouble throwing it for strikes. Big league hitters, if you can’t throw it for a strike, they see that spin and just spit on it.

“One day I was playing catch with Brett Anderson, working on his slider grip, which he spikes. I did that, and it was really good on flat ground, so that offseason I started working on it. Then my finger started coming up higher, so I was throwing a normal spiked curveball. In 2010, in spring training, I started using it against hitters. I’ve thrown it ever since. Read the rest of this entry »

As I’ve chosen topics to research and write about over the past few months, I’ve let an obsession creep into my writing catalog — I’m fascinated by pitcher and batter behavior in 3-0 counts. Whether it’s three-pitch strikeouts after falling behind 3-0, Ronald Acuña aggressively hacking on 3-0, or even just Brandon Belt sneaking in a bunt, I can’t get enough of the goofy ways baseball gets distorted in that most extreme of counts.

What’s so fun about 3-0 is that context matters. For a lot of baseball, looking at things in a context-neutral fashion is the best way to analyze it. A double is a double is a double, and it doesn’t make sense to treat one with the bases juiced in a tie game differently than you would a leadoff double in the first inning when you’re assessing a player. Hitters have little control over balls in play, and absolutely none over who’s on base when they come to the plate. Pitchers, likewise, can’t control sequencing — that’s why concepts like wOBA and FIP do a better job predicting future results than RBI and win/loss record (or, fine, ERA).

But one place context does matter is the count. The world of 3-0 counts is only barely related to 0-2 counts. A pitcher’s arsenal is limitless at 0-2, constrained mostly to fastballs on 3-0. Conversely, a batter has no choice other than to defend the strike zone on 0-2, whereas 3-0 opens up myriad possibilities. That context is what makes the realm of 3-0 counts so fascinating to me. Today, I thought I’d take a theoretical approach to the subject. Read the rest of this entry »

Jack Little may well become a big-league pitcher. Ditto a member of a big-league front office. Drafted in the fifth round this year out of Stanford University, the 21-year-old right-hander possesses the potential to do both. For now, he’s taking the mound for the Great Lakes Loons, the low-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

On Friday, I asked Little about the genesis of his low-three-quarter arm slot.

“That’s a good question, honestly,” replied the righty, who has a 2.05 ERA in 22 professional innings. “In high school I was more high three-quarters — a normal three-quarters slot — but then I kind of just naturally moved lower. It wasn’t intentional, I just did it.”

Success followed. Little began getting more swings-and-misses with his fastball, and unlike many pitchers who move to a lower slot, the movement wasn’t downward. “I started missing above barrels a lot more,” Little explained. “I became more deceptive, and while I’m not 98 [mph] — I’m only low 90s — it kind of gets on the hitter, and plays more up in the zone.”

His slider is his best secondary pitch, which didn’t used to be the case. Prior to moving into the closer role at Stanford in his sophomore season, Little’s changeup was his go-to off-speed. He subsequently became fastball-heavy, with his changeup in his back pocket, and his slider a reasonably reliable No. 2 option… this despite its being, as he now knows, markedly unrefined. Read the rest of this entry »

We have a sizable collection of players to talk about this week because the two of us have been busy wrapping up our summer looks at the 2020 Draft class over the last couple weeks. This equates to every prospect added to or moved on THE BOARD since the Trade Deadline.

Top 100 Changes
We had two players enter the 50 FV tier in Diamondbacks SS Geraldo Perdomo and Padres C Luis Campusano. Perdomo is in the “Advanced Baseball Skills” player bucket with players like Vidal Brujan, Brayan Rocchio and Xavier Edwards. He’s added visible power since first arriving in the States and had as many walks as strikeouts at Low-A before he was promoted to the Cal League, which has been Campusano’s stomping ground all summer. He’s still not a great catcher but he does have an impact arm, big power, and he’s a good enough athlete that we’re optimistic he’ll both catch and make the necessary adjustments to get to his power in games down the line.

We also moved a D-back and a Padre down in RHP Taylor Widener and 1B Tirso Ornelas. Widener has been very homer prone at Triple-A a year after leading the minors in K’s. His fastball has natural cut rather than ride and while we still like him as a rotation piece, there’s a chance he continues to be very susceptible to the long ball. Ornelas has dealt with injury and swing issues.

On Aristides Aquino
Aristides Aquino was a 50 FV on the 2017 Reds list; at the time, he was a traditional right field profile with big power undermined by the strikeout issues that would eventually cause his performance to tank so badly that he became a minor league free agent. A swing change visually similar to the one Justin Turner made before his breakout (Reds hitting coach Turner Ward comes from the Dodgers) is evident here, so we’re cautiously optimistic Aquino will be a productive role player, but we don’t think he’ll keep up a star’s pace. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last decade, we’ve seen a change in the demographics of baseball, with playing time shifting away from older, declining veterans toward younger players still in their prime. There’s a good reason for that, as each new generation of player entering the majors has been getting better and better relative to their older peers. Baseball’s owners have capitalized on this development — those younger, better players are also much cheaper. And teams have not reinvested those gains elsewhere on their rosters, as major league payrolls have stagnated the last few seasons while amateur talent expenditures have become hard-capped. Given the emphasis on younger players, it might be reasonable to believe that when it comes to fielding a winning team, payroll matters less than ever. But that hasn’t been the case this season.

This piece marks the fifth season during which I’ve taken a look at the standings in August and compared them to Opening Day payrolls (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018) and for the most part, the relationship between Opening Day payrolls and wins has been relatively low. I’ve used the Pearson correlation coefficient “r” to track the strength of the relationship between the two and from the end of the strike through 2011, the average correlation per year was .45. In the last seven seasons heading into this season, though, the correlation coefficient between the two was higher than .31 only once, when it was a high .62 back in 2016.

In past years, I’ve noted that while individual season correlations have remained low, looking at either sustained spending or using Forbes franchise valuations to gauge a team’s overall financial might tends to show that the relationship between spending, wealth, and winning remains strong. That logic remains for this season, and indeed, the relationship between wins and payroll trails only that of 2016 season this decade:

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As we’re reminded every time they face the Yankees and give up homers by the half-dozen, the Orioles are a very bad baseball team. At 39-82, they’re 41 1/2 games out of first place, and on pace for 52 wins, which means they could lose more than two-thirds of their games for the second season in a row. They’re just nine homers away from breaking the single-season record for dingers allowed (258). And yet they’re not even the majors’ worst team. Neither are the Marlins, who through the first 41 games of the season slipped below the Throneberry Line by losing 31 games.

That so much attention has been paid to those bad ballclubs might be chalked up to yet another instance of East Coast Bias, because tucked away in the more wholesome Midwest are the Detroit Tigers, who are doing things (and not doing things) to rekindle memories of their 2003 squad, which gave Throneberry’s 1962 Mets a run for their money by losing 119 games. At 36-81, these Tigers are on pace to go 50-112, but a slight slippage could send them past last year’s 115-loss Orioles. In the words of James Brown, “People, it’s bad.”

This — what’s the opposite of web gem? — might be the 2019 squad’s signature play (h/t @suss2hyphens):

The Tigers were a competitive concern as recently as 2016, when they went 86-75 but slid out of a Wild Card spot in late September. That was the last gasp of the core that won four straight AL Central titles from 2011-14, and one that probably should have begun scattering to the four winds earlier. As it was, general manager Al Avila — who replaced Dave Dombrowski in late 2015 — traded Alex Avila (his own son!), J.D. Martinez, Justin Upton, Justin Verlander, and Justin Wilson in a six-week span in mid-2017, as the team was en route to 98 losses.

The Tigers are rebuilding, but their rebuild has been hampered by a farm system weakened by years of bad drafts and repeated mining to keep their competitive window open. One has to dial back to 2011 to find a year in which the Tigers’ top draft pick (James McCann, who was a second-rounder) ever suited up for the team in the regular season, and 2012 (Jake Thompson) for one who even played in the majors. Baseball America’s annual organizational rankings placed their system between 26th and 30th annually from 2014-17. That’s a lousy platform from which to launch a rebuild, and it’s shown. Last year’s Tigers lost 98 games under new manager Ron Gardenhire, and this year’s crop is worse. Much, much worse.

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Fernando Tatis Jr. has been one of the most exciting players in baseball this year. I get giddy when he does things like this:

Or like this:

Despite that, I haven’t written about Tatis. It’s not that he wasn’t interesting enough. To paraphrase Taylor Swift, he should take it as a compliment that I’ve been writing about everyone in the league but him. I simply couldn’t find an angle that I felt captured what’s so awesome about Tatis. I still don’t have that angle, but I don’t care anymore. Fernando Tatis Jr. is the best, and it pains me that he’s day-to-day with a back injury right now. Let’s talk about him, because no day should go by without a Tatis highlight. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the four-year period from 2015 to 2018, José Altuve’s 24 wins above replacement ranked third among all position players in baseball behind only Mike Trout and Mookie Betts. His 143 wRC+ ranked 10th in the sport and his 2017 MVP win cemented his status as one of the best players in the game. After a strong start to the 2018 season, Altuve suffered a right knee injury last July that eventually required surgery in October. Although he started this season healthy, he began to slump, then hit the disabled list with a hamstring problem and stayed on the disabled list due to lingering pain in his knee. Based on this second half batting leaderboard, it appears his injury and slump are behind him:

Back in May, Jay Jaffe noted that Altuve’s stint on the injured list coincided with a rare slump for the Astros’ diminutive (obligatory height reference) second baseman. Jaffe discussed how Altuve’s results on batted balls out of the zone were much lower than in previous seasons.

Altuve’s batting average on pitches in the zone is down 57 points relative to last year and 81 points relative to his combined 2015-18 performance; even so, it’s been offset by a higher slugging percentage because of the homers. It’s his contact with pitches outside the zone where the numbers look particularly grim; removing the non-contact plate appearances, he’s 5-for-28 (.179) on such balls this year, all singles, where last year, he was 40-for-119 (.336) with a .437 slugging percentage.

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Before the season started, the National League looked like it would feature one of the most exciting and evenly matched regular seasons in recent memory. While the Dodgers were the clear class of the league, every team except the Marlins and Giants had legitimate playoff hopes. FanGraphs thought the Pirates had the third-lowest chances of making the playoffs, and they came in just above 10%. By contrast, seven teams in the American League had a 5% or less chance of reaching postseason play.

With the benefit of hindsight, even the Giants had their shot at a one-game playoff. They’ve faded now, 3 1/2 games out of the Wild Card race, but even that vastly outstrips what was expected of them before the season. Could this year’s NL be the platonic ideal of baseball, a cellar-less (again, other than the Marlins) league with every team at least somewhat in the running for the playoffs until the last month of the year?

Alas, it wasn’t to be. The Giants have outstripped expectations, but they’ve been replaced at the bottom of the table by another team with marginal hopes of contending this year, the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates don’t look like a team built to play for draft position. They made win-now trades as recently as last year, adding Chris Archer in what now looks like one of the most lopsided deals of all time. They came into the season hoping for breakouts from some of their hitters and got them — Josh Bell started the season mashing, and Bryan Reynolds has been a revelation.

Heck, as recently as the All-Star break, the Pirates looked like contenders. They were 44-45, only 2 1/2 games out of first place in the NL Central race, and one of seven teams within 2 1/2 games of the Wild Card. They’d outperformed their Pythagorean record to get there, sure, but what’s past is past, and the Pirates were a month or two of inspired baseball away from a playoff run. Our playoff odds still didn’t like their chances, giving them a 10.3% shot, but stranger things have happened: the Mets, after all, had only a 4.9% chance of reaching the playoffs on that date. Read the rest of this entry »