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It’s no secret that Christian Yelich can hit. The 22-year-old Miami Marlins outfielder was drafted 23rd overall in 2010 for much that reason. He proceeded to hit .313/.387/.499 in the minors before being called up last July. This year he’s off to a .315.384/.393 start in 99 plate appearances. Many view him as a future batting champion.

Yelich is more guarded than most. I’ve asked hundreds of hitters about their approach, and almost all have been willing to expound on it. Not Yelich. When I broached the subject earlier this week he was personable yet reticent.

“I will not tell you that,” responded Yelich. “I do look for stuff up there, but I don’t really want to say what I’m trying to do. I don’t like talking about my approach.”

That wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for, as talking to the talented youngster about his craft was a primary reason I ventured into the clubhouse. Pursuing it from a different angle, I asked if he is the same hitter now as when he signed.

“I think you stay the same,” answered Yelich. “Guys get in trouble when they try to change when they get to pro ball, or when they get called up to the big leagues. Making major changes usually isn’t a great idea, but you can make adjustments. Teams make adjustments to you and you make adjustments to them. That’s the game of baseball.”

The left-handed hitter was fairly forthcoming on mechanics.

“Coming into pro ball I was a little taller,” said Yelich. “I was basically straight up. I really wasn’t on my legs a whole lot. I made an adjustment to spread out a little bit. Guys were throwing harder and I was able to recognize pitches a little better that way. That’s the only major mechanical adjustment I’ve made.

“Physically, every hitter is different. Guys have things they do when they’re successful, and things they do when they’re starting to go bad. You have to be able to recognize what those are. You learn yourself coming up through the minors; you learn your swing better.”

He remained reserved when I revisited his approach.

“Your first go-round in the big leagues against some of these teams… I’m learning pitchers,” said Yelich. “Certain pitchers do certain things and fall into patterns. And pitchers try to learn hitters. That’s why I don’t want to tell you about my approach at the plate. It’s a big part of the game. Certain guys pitch you a certain way and other guys pitch another way.”

I asked what a hitter can divulge that can’t be ascertained from video and scouting reports.

“You’d be surprised,” said Yelich. “That’s just the way it is.”

——

Jarrod Saltalamacchia is open about what it means to be a Marlin. The 28-year-old catcher is a veteran presence on a team loaded with youth and promise. Last season he was the second-youngest starter on a team that won the World Series. I asked “Salty” about going from Boston to Miami.

“There’s a lot less media here,” answered Saltalamacchia. “There aren’t 25-30 [reporters] waiting for you after a game like in Boston. Otherwise, the biggest difference is that there are a lot of younger guys. I’m finding myself saying things like ‘This is how we did it’ or ‘This is what I’ve seen.’ In some ways, it’s almost more of a coaching [role].

“We have a lot of young guys who can play but are still trying to find themselves,” continued Saltalamacchia. “The league doesn’t really know them, so it’s fun to see them go out there and just kind of see-ball-hit-ball. That’s kind of a Catch-22. In one respect it’s good, because you want them to be… how should I say this? With veteran guys you know what you’re going to get. With young guys there are still a lot of unknowns. It’s fun for me to watch them go out there and just play the game, have fun, and kind of search for who they are.”

I asked Saltalamacchia, a week short of his 29th birthday, if he has a firm grasp of who he is as player.

“I pretty much know who I am now,” said Saltalamacchia. “I don’t go out there to do more than I’m capable of doing. The best thing about veteran guys is you don’t see them trying to be something they’re not. They know what they can do with certain pitches and they do it. They also know how to control their emotions. Young guys are still young. They try to prove themselves by doing more.

“When I was in Texas, I would watch guys like Mike Young hit and be like, ‘Man, that would be awesome; I’m going to try to do that.’ But that wasn’t me. I’m not going to be a contact hitter. I’m going to work counts and try to hit gaps. I’m going to have my strikeouts. It wasn’t until I got to Boston and talked to Varitek, Pedroia and some of the other veterans – they said ‘Hey, don’t get away from who you are.’ Dave Magadan was another huge help as far as finding out who I am.”

Saltalamacchia feels Jose Fernandez has yet to fully find himself. That’s bad news for opposing teams, as the Marlins ace is already one of the best pitchers in baseball. He is also, as Salty recognizes, just 21 years old.

“Jose has amazing stuff, but he’s still kind of throwing the ball,” opined Saltalamacchia, one day before Fernandez overpowered the Atlanta Braves with 97-mph fastballs and knee-buckling curveballs. “Once he discovers how good he really is and starts pitching, he’s going to be really, really good.”

The veteran catcher cites 28-year-old closer Steve Cishek as an example of a pitcher with a good understanding of who he is.

“There are times he’ll come set and wait a few seconds, because he wants the hitter to maybe think a little bit more,” said Saltalamacchia. “Or he’ll just bear down and really concentrate on where he wants the pitch to go. He’s got a good understanding of who’s up and he knows how to slow the game down. If you’re able to slow the game down enough to where you’re thinking and not just gripping the ball and throwing… that’s something that comes with experience.”

——

Vidal Nuno has experienced a lot at a relatively young age. The 26-year-old southpaw went from California to Kansas before Cleveland took him in the 48th round of the 2009 draft. Two years later he was pitching in the independent Frontier League. Last week he replaced the injured Ivan Nova in the New York Yankees starting rotation.

How did Nuno end up at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas?

“It was about opportunities and needing to see the world a little bit, see the United States,” explained Nuno. “I talked to family members, and a couple of scouts told me the best way to get my name out there was to move on from San Diego. I had options – I could have gone to San Diego State – but I needed to get out and meet new people, have some new connections.

“I wasn’t drafted out of high school. I was a small kid, barely throwing 82, but I had good command and a heart that made me compete. I had that going for me.”

Those attributes were enough for Nuno to excel at the small-college level and get drafted. They weren’t enough to keep him in pro ball. The Indians released him after a nondescript first full professional season in low-A. I asked the stocky lefty if he feared his career might be over when he was let go.

“Oh yeah,” admitted Nuno. “That’s always a question when you get released, or even when things aren’t going your way. It was a little downfall for me. What they told me was there weren’t enough innings where I was at. They’d drafted a lot of pitchers the last two years and there is always going to be a depth chart. Teams are going to give the chances to the guys who got the bonus money. It’s about getting an opportunity, and when I’ve gotten an opportunity I’ve done my best to take advantage of it.”

That’s exactly what Nuno has done since the Yankees signed him off the scrap heap. Despite a fastball that averages just 89 mph, he’s pitched himself onto a big league staff. How did he do it?

“It’s been heart and work ethic,” opined Nuno. “I also added a changeup and a cutter from Double-A to now. I’ve always had good command, but instead of having two pitches, I have five or six. I use all of them. I have to.

“It’s all about pressure points and arm action. I’m not a flamethrower. I’m a crafty guy. I have to be crafty and make the ball move. If I do that and locate in and out, it’s going to be a good day.”

——

Mick Kelleher didn’t have a particularly good day on August 7, 1977. Playing for the Chicago Cubs, the 5-foot-9, 170 lb. infielder suffered bruised ribs tangling with Dave Kingman. Known for his prodigious power, “King Kong” stood 6-foot-6 and weighed well over 200 pounds.

Kelleher currently coaches first base for the Yankees. When he consented to talk about his infamous fracas, the first thing I asked was, “Are you braver than you are smart?” Kelleher laughed. “I was at that time.”

“Kingman was with San Diego and the game was in Chicago,” remembers Kelleher. “Bob Shirley was pitching for the Padres and Steve Renko was pitching for the Cubs. Steve was about 6-6, 260. We had a knockdown, drag-out all day long. There were two fights prior to the one I got in with Kingman. People were throwing at each other.

“Kingman came up and Renko hit him in the shoulder. He didn’t charge the mound, he just went to first base. The next guy hit a ball to short and he turned it over to me – I was playing second base – and here was Kingman, coming in, standing straight up. He didn’t slide. He basically came after me. I went to the ground, but then got up and we fought. He’s a big man, but in the heat of battle you kind of lose it. It didn’t matter how big he was, we were going to fight. The next thing I knew we were on the bottom of the pile.

“I ended up with five bruised ribs on the side where he hit me. I had a wrenched neck and a charlie horse. When my feet hit the ground I flipped him over my shoulder and one of his legs landed right on my thigh. I was pretty banged up.”

The ramifications were far different than they would be today. Kelleher and Kingman were the only two players ejected from the game. Both were fined $250 and neither was suspended.

Following the season, Kingman signed with the Cubs as a free agent and the two became teammates. Upon reporting to spring training, Kingman found Kelleher wearing a provocative piece of apparel.

“I had a t-shirt my fan club in Chicago had given me,” explained Kelleher. “It said ‘King Kong Killer.’ His nickname was King Kong and mine has always been Killer. I used to wear the t-shirt around the clubhouse. He wasn’t a real popular guy and we didn’t know each other very well at that point, but I’d go around the locker room wearing the t-shirt. I’d be punching my fist into my other hand. Everybody got a real kick out of that.

“Dave and I ended up becoming friends. We never talked about the fight. It was just something that happened in baseball on that one particular day. That’s the way the game was back then. He never brought it up and I never brought it up. We did joke about the t-shirt, but that was about it.”

Don’t look now, but the Minnesota Twins lead the major leagues in runs scored per game. The Minnesota Twins — with a line-up featuring the likes of Chris Colabello, Pedro Florimon, Kurt Suzuki, Aaron Hicks, Josmil Pinto, and Trevor Plouffe — are scoring 5.52 runs per game in a month where Joe Mauer has been kind of terrible. On the list of amazing things to happen this April, this has to rank near the very top. And the way they’re scoring runs is perhaps just as surprising.

When you think of organizations that have committed to a patient approach at the plate, you probably think of the Red Sox, Yankees, A’s, and Indians; clubs with long track records of emphasizing on-base percentage and working counts. You probably don’t think of the Twins; over the last three years, Minnesota’s hitters rank just 24th in OBP and are tied for 16th in walk rate. Even with a franchise player like Joe Mauer, taking pitches and getting on base hasn’t really been a point of emphasis for the Twins, and Mauer found himself surrounded by the likes of Ben Revere, Ryan Doumit, Alexi Casilla, and Danny Valencia.

Those four are all gone now, however, and the new Twins don’t look much like the old Twins. Their 12.9% walk rate leads the majors, and their .354 OBP ranks second only to the Colorado Rockies. The Twins are basically walking their way into wins, and it looks like it might very well be be design.

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Carlos Beltran understands who he is as a hitter. But that doesn’t mean he’s always the same hitter. The 37-year-old New York Yankees outfielder adapts according to feel and he focuses better in some situations than in others. Still, you can’t argue with the results: He’s hit .283/.356/.497 with 363 home runs since breaking into the big leagues with the Royals in 1998. In 51 postseason games he’s hit .333/.445/.683 with 16 home runs.

Beltran talked hitting prior to last night’s game at Fenway Park.

——

Beltran on mechanical adjustments: “Every year, you don’t feel the same so you have to find a way. You find a position where you feel comfortable mechanically and work with that. The way I hit last year compared to how I’m hitting this year is a little bit different. One thing is the position of the bat. Last year I felt good with my hands like this [slightly forward] and this year that feels a little uncomfortable. This year they’re back a little bit.

“When I was coming up in the big leagues, I talked to a lot of guys I looked up to. One of those guys was Edgar Martinez. I asked him if every year he feels the same. He said ‘No, every year I don’t feel the same.’ Your body feels different. Maybe some years you’re into your legs a little more, and other years you’re more comfortable a little bit taller. It’s basically how you feel. For me, left and right are two different swings. Depending on how I feel, I might be the same from both sides or I might be different.

“You need to feel comfortable, but you can’t be doing one thing in one at bat and in the next at bat do something different. You need to be confident with what you’re doing.”

On having a strong base: “I have to feel I’m in my legs. For example, if a pitcher takes a long time to release the baseball my legs are going to get tired. When I feel like the wind is moving me back and forth… like if it’s windy and I feel off-balance, I don’t like that. I need to step out and reset. When I feel set, I feel good hitting-wise. After every swing I take, I try to reset myself and think about my lower body. Once I feel like my lower body is there, then I transfer all my concentration on the pitcher.”

On his approach: “I concentrate on my strength. I’m not a guy who hits the ball a lot to the opposite field. I hit more center and right center and concentrate on getting a pitch in an area I know I can handle. If it’s a pitch on the outside corner, I know I can’t do much with that pitch. Unless I have two strikes, I don’t want to swing at it. If it’s a pitch on the inside corner and I don’t have two strikes, I don’t want to swing at it. That’s a pitch where, even if I take a good hack, I feel I’m not going to do much with it. I have to look for a pitch out over the strike zone, in or away. Basically, near the middle. Pitchers are going to miss and you have to be ready to hit and take advantage of that pitch when they miss.”

On hitting with runners on base: “I love RBIs. I love to drive in runs and take a lot of pride in those situations. I believe I’m a different hitter with guys on base. Leading off an inning, I feel like maybe my concentration is not there. When I have guys in scoring position I concentrate more because I know if I get a hit we can tie a ballgame, take the lead, add to our lead or shorten a deficit.

“You don’t want to make an out, but you have to be realistic. You’re going to fail a lot. I’m not trying to give away at bats, but like I said, I’m a different hitter with guys in scoring position.”

(Note: The 2014 numbers below do not include yesterday’s performances.)

It’s still April, and the sample sizes are still small, so it’s important not to overreact to early season performances, both positive and negative. Still, we have passed the eighth pole, and it’s not too early to peel back a layer or two of batted-ball data and identify a few players whose early season slumps may be about to cross the line toward becoming somewhat significant trends possibly indicative of a change in true talent level. Read the rest of this entry »

The best and the worst thing about baseball is that, during the season, it’s almost never not going on. Every single day brings a new slate of games, and if you actually step back and think about it, it’s kind of overwhelming. The Brewers are off to a hot start, at 15-6. All they have left is another 141 baseball games. The upside is that, if there’s a lousy baseball day, there could be a better baseball day right around the corner. The downside is that, if there’s an incredible baseball day, in a short amount of time it’s yesterday’s news. Baseball allows for only so much time to reflect.

Case in point: it’s Wednesday, and at this writing, on Wednesday, the Marlins and Braves have already finished a game. Because the Marlins and Braves have already played Wednesday, there’s less will to think about what the Marlins and Braves did Tuesday. But just Tuesday night — last night — the Marlins and Braves competed in a classic. As things turned out, Jose Fernandez and Alex Wood put together at least the pitchers’ duel of the season, and perhaps the pitchers’ duel of the last many seasons.

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Pitching and defense are inextricably intertwined, and that shouldn’t be a controversial statement. Any pitcher who isn’t striking out 100 percent of the batters he’s facing is relying on his defense for help. Any defense can only do so much to stop an opposing offense when their pitcher is giving up an endless amount of homers and line drives. It all comes together as run prevention, which is a team effort, and it’s why we have things like FIP & xFIP and de-emphasize or totally ignore things like ERA & wins that attempt to give the pitcher all of the credit (or blame).

That being the case, sometimes it’s fun to look at ERA-FIP, which shows you the gap between the two, and is a nice rough way to look at what pitching staffs are being helped (or not) by their defenses. Ideally, the teams with the biggest gaps, in either direction, should correspond to the teams with great or terrible defenses. If you look at starting rotations in 2014, you’ll see a few things stand out. First, you’ll notice that the Diamondbacks have an ERA 2.00 runs higher than their FIP, which is probably less about defense than it is about the fact that they’re a flaming dumpster fire that, if they keep things up like this, will give me a nice juicy “this is among the worst rotations ever” topic in a few days. But among teams functioning on some plane of reality, you’ll see that the Indians are the next-worst team, with an ERA 1.62 runs higher than their FIP, and that the Braves are the best, with an ERA 1.42 runs below their FIP.

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Since nearly the first day of the season, each player page at FanGraphs has featured — in addition to the assortment of 2014 projections made available during the preseason — both a rest-of-season and updated end-of-season projection for both the Steamer and ZiPS systems. In what follows, the author has utilized that data to the end of identifying five pitchers whose end-of-season projections have most improved since the beginning of the season.

Depending on what question one is specifically hoping to answer, there are a number of ways to attempt such an endeavor. What follows is the methodology I’ve used, however, with a brief explanation of certain choices.

What I’ve done is to:

1. Find the preseason projections for each pitcher according both to Steamer and ZiPS.

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Fairly early in life, I’d venture to guess that many of us learned to play basic card games, from poker to rummy to blackjack. These games were often learned at home from parents or other older relatives, in a family bonding type of setting. At an early stage in this process, someone likely sat us down and handed down some helpful hints as to how to play the game well – if the dealer is showing a face card in blackjack, for instance, it might make sense to take another card – a hit – if you are holding 16, otherwise a scenario in which you would almost never take another card. Playing the game thusly doesn’t mean you’re always going to win, of course – it simply tilts the odds ever so slightly in your direction.

Whether you’re playing bridge, Scrabble, Monopoly or Trivial Pursuit, there are “little things” you can do within the rules that enhance your chances of winning. It’s called game theory, and understanding it is vital to success in any endeavor that includes an element of chance. Odds are that utilization of data has become more commonplace in your workplace, and is integral to the management of businesses of all types. For some reason, despite the proliferation of data and its increased usage in baseball today, basic tenets of game theory continue to go unheeded by managers/organizations, and unnoticed by announcers/traditional media/bloggers. Case in point – this past weekend’s Mariners-Marlins series. Read the rest of this entry »

Funny thing about the WAR leaderboard is, as much as it’s still very early in the season, familiar names are starting to find their places. There’s Mike Trout. Of course there’s Mike Trout. If “WAR” didn’t sound so damned good, the stat might be called Wins Below Trout, and one would reasonably expect him to lead baseball from now through the end of the year. There’s Chase Utley, and as much as the Phillies have fallen apart around him, Utley remains one of the better all-around players in baseball, despite the injuries he’s been through. There’s Troy Tulowitzki, and of course Tulowitzki is one of the elites for as long as he can stay on the field. There’s Justin Upton, who has flashes of superstardom. There’s Freddie Freeman, who’s young enough to have this much upside. There are good players, and real good players, and some early surprises, and among the early surprises is Colorado’s Charlie Blackmon.

If you read FanGraphs, you’re more than a casual baseball fan, so you’re more likely to have heard of Charlie Blackmon. Also, if you read FanGraphs, you’ve read Carson Cistulli, so you’re more likely still to have heard of Charlie Blackmon. Blackmon has long been one of Cistulli’s crushes, but the thing about Cistulli’s crushes is that he deliberately falls in love with the fringey and unheralded. Those players aren’t supposed to blossom into stars, not anywhere outside of Cistulli’s head, but here we are and we have to acknowledge what Blackmon’s been up to since winning a job with the Rockies out of camp.

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The season is still only three weeks old, and basically anything can happen over the course of 20 baseball games. The Brewers aren’t the best team in baseball, the D’Backs aren’t the worst, and Jesse Chavez isn’t going to win the Cy Young Award. But, at the same time, the most recent data is also the most informative data, and there are some numbers that can have meaning quicker than others. While you shouldn’t care too much about a team’s Win-Loss record on April 21st, we can boil down early season team performance into numbers that a bit more heavily represented by skill rather than randomness.

One of my favorite ways to look at team performance is wOBA differential. It’s basically the same concept as run differential, but strips away the heavy factor that sequencing can have on runs scored and runs allowed. The order of events matters in the outcome of past results, but holds little predictive value, and by looking at non-sequenced results, we can get a better idea of how a team has performed than if we also introduce the timing of those events into the mix.

wOBA differential isn’t perfect, of course; it doesn’t include baserunning, for one, and teams can move the needle a little bit by how often their baserunners advance, but that portion of the game is fairly small relative to everything else. By and large, wOBA differential gives you a pretty good idea of how teams have played thus far. So, let’s get to the numbers.

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