If you are familiar with Andrés Muñoz, the baseball player, you may know that he is good. It may be enough for you to simply witness and bask in his elite performance, and question it no further. (Rarely are we so content here.) You may not realize he is unusual; you may not care. Often in baseball, being good and being unusual go hand in hand. This is a short exploration, albeit one preceded by an exorbitantly long prologue, of why Muñoz is good and unusual.

If you are familiar with FanGraphs, the baseball website, you may know about approach angles. If not: A pitch’s approach angle is the three-dimensional angle at which it crosses the front of home plate. Broken down into its two-dimensional vectors, it becomes vertical approach angle (VAA) and horizontal approach angle (HAA).

VAA is a description of pitch shape and thus depends on other physical attributes of the pitch — namely, its velocity and acceleration in all three dimensions. While representing the most distilled measurements of a pitch’s movement through space, the velocity and acceleration vectors themselves are functions of release height, release angle, release speed, spin rate, spin axis, spin efficiency… it goes on. VAA, as it happens, is very sensitive to pitch height. Reporting a pitch’s average VAA is not especially meaningful without either providing locational context or stripping it of that context all together.

To accomplish the latter, I developed VAA Above Average. It’s a simple recalculation that communicates a fastball’s flatness or steepness irrespective of pitch height. Through this it’s much easier to see that, for example, flatter VAAs induce higher swinging strike rates (SwStr%) at all pitch heights compared to steeper VAAs (forgive the half-baked visualization):

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Though they’ve lost two straight to trim their AL West lead to a single game, the Mariners are a first-place team thanks to a recent 16-4 stretch that has boosted their record to 20-14. As I noted last week, their success for a change hasn’t been driven by the strength of their rotation, which has been without George Kirby thus far due to shoulder inflammation and is now without Logan Gilbert, who landed on the IL in late April with a flexor strain. Rather, Seattle been carried by an exceptionally potent offense, a marked contrast from recent years, particularly 2024, when the team’s failure to score contributed to the August firings of manager Scott Servais and hitting coach Jarret DeHart. These Mariners have benefited not only from Cal Raleigh’s heavy hitting, but from the ongoing presence of Randy Arozarena, who was acquired just before last year’s trade deadline, and rebounds from players who struggled due to injuries last season, such as J.P. Crawford and Jorge Polanco. The return of Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez to their coaching staff has helped, and it does appear as though T-Mobile Park has been a bit more forgiving than usual.

Raleigh and Polanco are the hitters getting the headlines. Raleigh is currently slashing .240/.359/.574 with a major league-high 12 homers, and he ranks third in the AL in slugging percentage behind only Aaron Judge and Alex Bregman, and fourth in the league in wRC+ behind those two and Jonathan Aranda(!). While Polanco doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title because an oblique strain has limited him to swinging left-handed and to DHing instead of playing the field, he’s hit a ridiculous .369/.407/.750 (233 wRC+) with nine homers in just 92 plate appearances (14 short of qualifying). Crawford is batting .294/.417/.404 (151 wRC+) and Arozarena .224/.366/.414 (136 wRC+). Both players are walking over 15% of the time, with Raleigh drawing a pass 14.4% of the time; the team’s 11.2% walk rate leads the majors.

All of that has helped the Mariners withstand a comparatively slow start by Julio Rodríguez (.206/.308/.375, 103 wRC+) and a wave of injuries that has forced right fielder Victor Robles, outfielder-first baseman Luke Raley, utilityman Dylan Moore, and second baseman Ryan Bliss to the injured list alongside the aforementioned rotation stalwarts [Update: Moore was activated just after this article was published]. Even so, the Mariners have gotten a 100 wRC+ or better from every position besides first base (where Rowdy Tellez, Donovan Solano, Raley and Moore have combined for a 60 wRC+) and right field (where six players, among them the injured Robles, Raley and Moore, have combined for a 90 wRC+). Read the rest of this entry »

It isn’t supposed to be this easy. When the Phillies traded for Jesús Luzardo over the winter, they did so with the understanding that he wouldn’t be an ace right from the jump. He was coming off a rough and injured 2024, he’d only hit 20 starts in a season once in his career, and every warning light you could possibly imagine was flashing – worst stuff model grades of his career, lowest strikeout rate, lowest whiff rate, highest hard-hit rate.

Those warning signs explain why the Phillies were able to acquire Luzardo for relative peanuts. It also explains why our projection systems were unenthused by him heading into this year, projecting a 4.19 ERA, a distant fifth among Philadelphia’s starters. No one doubts Luzardo’s potential, but after six seasons and 500 innings (itself not a great sign) of roughly league-average work, well, at some point you are what you are.

Right, yeah, Luzardo’s been the best pitcher on the Phillies this year and one of the best pitchers in baseball. I’m not as surprised as I thought I’d be. But given that we’re a quarter of the way through the season and his ERA and FIP are both below 2.00, I think it’s time to take a closer look at what he’s doing differently.
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It is well known that analytics have changed the baseball landscape. Moreover, it is widely understood that the evolution is ongoing. Embracing innovation, especially within the technology realm, has increasingly become a must for teams looking to keep up with — and ideally get a step ahead of — the competition. For front offices across the game, it’s adapt or die.

What does that mean for the general managers and presidents of baseball operations who lead those front offices? In other words, how have the ever-continuing advancements impacted their jobs over the years? Wanting to find out, I asked four longtime executives for their perspectives.

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On how analytics have impacted the job

John Mozeliak, St. Louis Cardinals

“When I first broke in, how you made decisions was basically based on scouting reports and traditional statistics. Now it’s much more analytically driven because of the advanced metrics. If you think about it, in the old days when people would invest in stocks… it’s the same kind of thinking now. The more information you have, the better your decisions are. That’s changed quite a bit over the last 25 years.

“Two things come to mind. One is understanding the longevity of a player. In other words, how long should you be investing in a player? The other thing is prospect evaluation; how much value someone might have, even though they’re still in the minor leagues. When you think back to 20-30 years ago, a lot of times minor league players didn’t have the same type of value that you’re seeing today.

“The economics of baseball have changed drastically. There is more revenue in the game, and higher payrolls, but there is also how you think about moving talent for talent. It’s much more based on economics than just pure ‘I think he’s a good baseball player.’”

Jerry Dipoto, Seattle Mariners Read the rest of this entry »

Ty France went into last season trying to be something he’s not, and the results reflected that. Over 535 plate appearances split between the Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds, he slashed .234/.305/.365 with 13 home runs and a 93 wRC+. Statistically speaking, it was the worst year of his career.

Now with the Minnesota Twins after inking a modest $1M free-agent deal in mid-February, France went into yesterday with numbers more in line with what he did from 2019-2023. A month-plus into the campaign, the 30-year-old first baseman has a 118 wRC+ and a .271/.341/.407 slash line.

How has he rediscovered the better version of himself?

“My swing is simple and compact right now,” France told me prior to an 0-for-4 Friday night that included his being robbed on a diving catch and lining an at-em ball at an infielder. “Instead of trying to do too much, I’m just trying to get in my best position and take a good swing.

“Guys are getting paid for homers and doing damage, so a lot of my training last offseason was geared toward trying to hit the ball in the air and drive the ball,” France added. “I kind of lost touch with what I was best at, which is using the right side of the field just collecting hits. This past offseason was about getting back to the basics and rediscovering who I am as a hitter.” Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Cincinnati Reds. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Every winter, pitchers step off the mound and into the lab. Sure, not every pitcher is in a wind tunnel with a high speed camera from October to January, but enough are that everyone seems to reap the benefits. You’ve got the sweeper, the kick change, the rise of the splitter, new fastball shapes – you name it, someone has tried it recently. That means that every year, I spend the first month or two of the season catching up to the new hot thing going on in the world of pitching.

But I have to level with you: On the whole, things haven’t changed as much this year as I expected. That won’t stop me from walking through what has changed, though, and the first shift to highlight is a subtle one – we’re seeing more bendy sliders and fewer gyro offerings:

Why? Two things are happening. First, sweeping sliders do better against same-handed batters, so pitchers are choosing that as their secondary of choice when they have the platoon advantage. In 2021, 2.6% of pitches that righties threw to righties were sweepers. In 2025, that number has ballooned to 10.7%; it’s 10.9% for lefties against lefties. Usage is less than half as high when opposite-handed batters are at the plate.

Meanwhile, “regular” sliders are on the decline when pitchers have the platoon advantage. That makes good sense – they’re just throwing sweepers instead. And when pitchers aren’t facing same-handed batters, neither slider is particularly great; pitchers are staying away from both, more or less. That means that the traditional, gyro-spin slider is declining in prevalence overall. Read the rest of this entry »

Carlos Correa has grounded into six double plays this season. He doesn’t lead the league; that would be Junior Caminero, who has already racked up nine, putting him on pace for an even 50 by the end of the year. If Caminero keeps that up (he won’t), he would shatter the single-season record of 36, set by Jim Rice in 1984. Still, it’s Correa whose GIDP numbers I find most intriguing.

Correa has always been prone to double plays. Since the day of his debut, 10 years ago in June, only five major leaguers have grounded into more of them. However, in 2023, Correa took things to a new level. He set a single-season Twins record by grounding into 30 double plays. He did so in just 130 games and 580 trips to the plate. His 30 GIDPs were the most by any player in a season since Casey McGehee in 2014 (31) and the most on a per-PA basis (min. 500 PA) since A.J. Pierzynski in 2004 (27 GIDPs in 510 PA). Adjusted for era, Correa’s GIDPs-per-PA rate registered as the third highest of all time:

Correa’s historically pitiful GIDP performance in 2023 made what he did next all the more fascinating. In 2024, he produced an equally historical turnaround season. He hit just five groundball double plays, 25 fewer than the year before. Admittedly, he played significantly fewer games, but even on a rate basis, the difference was astounding. Never in his career had he grounded into two-outers at a lower clip. (Quick aside: Writers need synonyms, and if they don’t exist, it’s our job to make them up. Get ready.) Read the rest of this entry »

Tanner Scott is 15 appearances into the season, and by extension 15 appearances into his four-year, $72 million Dodgers contract, and a lot of things are working as normal. He has a 2.40 ERA, almost exactly the same as the 2.31 he posted in a breakout campaign with Miami two years ago. He has a 2.93 FIP, just one hundredth of a run up from his mark last season. He has eight saves, which is commensurate with his role: Closer on a really good team.

But he hasn’t walked anyone. In 15 innings, having faced 54 batters, he hasn’t walked anyone. This falls into the most annoying April blog category of: “Please don’t mess with my premise before this article runs,” but as of this writing, Scott has thrown more innings than any pitcher in the league with zero walks. Only three pitchers with two or fewer walks on the year have thrown more innings than Scott.

That’s because he’s pounding the zone. Scott’s first-pitch strike rate is an astounding 85.2%, the highest number in baseball. That’s helped by a 45.1% chase rate, which is the highest mark in the league among pitchers with at least 10 innings this year. But Scott is also throwing in the zone a career-high 57.1% of the time, which is in the 87th percentile for pitchers with at least 10 innings this year. Read the rest of this entry »

On April 16, Jackson Holliday ended an 0-for-17 slump with a second-inning grand slam that put the Orioles up 4-0 in an eventual 9-1 win over the Guardians. But a commanding win wasn’t the only momentous occasion taking place at Camden Yards that evening — it was also Bark in the Park night. When asked in his post-game interview if there were any furry friends he’d like to shout out, he replied, “Oh yeah, Coconut’s here,” referring to the one year old Bernedoodle that Holliday and his wife added to their family during spring training last year. Coconut attended the game wearing Holliday’s jersey and acted as his good luck charm, though Holliday believes dogs beyond his own have the power to bring him positive vibes at the plate. “I have a good track record in the minor leagues of performing on Bark in the Park, so maybe we’ll have to have these more often,” Holliday continued. That is a claim simply begging to be fact-checked.

Over Holliday’s tenure in pro ball, he’s played in eight games where fans were encouraged to bring their pups to the park, five in the minors and three in the majors. In the minors, Holliday’s teams went 1-4, as he amassed 19 plate appearances with four walks, five strikeouts, two singles, two home runs, and four RBI. That’s good for a .266/.421/.666 slash line, which isn’t bad, but when you consider Holliday posted a .303/.443/.485 line in the minors, it’s really only impressive from a power perspective (Holliday’s slash line in big league Bark in the Park games is .222/.300/.500 with four RBI over 10 PA). Still, the home runs are clearly what stand out in Holliday’s mind, and given that he went deep just 23 times over 218 games in the minor leagues and is driving the ball over the fence even less frequently in the majors, it makes sense that those four-baggers would feature prominently in his memory. Especially since all three put his team in the lead.

Now, I will confess that I only checked Holliday’s home games for Bark in the Park events. As you’ll soon see, I did an absurd amount of manual data collection for this piece, but I drew the line at checking the theme nights for every minor league affiliate Holliday faced. Maybe he disappointed dog owners up and down the Mid-Atlantic as he posted monster numbers in opponent ballparks. We’ll never know. But Holliday’s assertion that he gets a leg up from the presence of his four-legged friends led to a broader research question. Are there other players who consistently outperform their typical production with all those good boys and girls in the building? Read the rest of this entry »