Sort relievers backwards by velocity, and only four closers are in the bottom 30. Sergio Romo and Huston Street live on their sliders, Koji Uehara has his splitter, and then there’s Casey Janssen, humming along with his cutter and a 90 mph fastball. I asked him how he does it, and he graciously answered without resorting to fisticuffs.
I don’t know what the top story in baseball actually is, because we don’t have a measurement for that. I guess it could be anything. What it should be, though, is the fact that the Toronto Blue Jays have won 11 consecutive games. If this were a simple 11-game winning streak, it’d be newsworthy, just because of the odds. But adding to the richness here is the identity of the team, and everything it’s been through. A team that was supposed to be good then was not good, then suddenly became impossibly good, climbing all the way back into the race. Just when people were ready to start officially writing the Blue Jays off as a bust, they picked themselves up in the fastest way possible.
The standings, now, are incredibly tight. In the American League East, five games separate first from fifth, which is also fourth. The Jays are three back in the wild card, and while there’s a point at which the gap is too large to fancy yourself a contender, the point’s a hell of a lot bigger than three. This is a team that’s been banged up, and this is a team that’s about to have the return of Jose Reyes. Unless things quickly reverse course, the Jays won’t soon be selling any pieces. They’ve erased much of their disadvantage.
I recently posed a question to seven players and three coaches. It was a question that doesn’t have an easy answer. Given the subjectivity involved, it may not even have a right answer.
Who was better, Barry Bonds or Babe Ruth?
The question was phrased exactly that way. It was up to the people responding to interpret the meaning of “better” and to elaborate accordingly. They were asked face-to-face, with no opportunity to reference statistical data on their phones or on their laptops. Their responses — listed below in alphabetical order — were both interesting and varied. Read the rest of this entry »
Last year, Mike Trout was 20-years-old, and he did things that no other 20-year-old in history had ever accomplished. He’s the only 20-year-old in baseball history to post a +10 WAR season, and it wasn’t just driven by his positive fielding numbers, as his 166 wRC+ was the best hitting performance any 20-year-old has ever posted. It was an historic season in many ways, but it was also the kind of season that didn’t look repeatable.
His BABIP was .383, and both his fielding and baserunning numbers were among the best in the game, but all of those variables are heavily influenced by speed, and speed peaks very early. During his run last year, I repeatedly noted that I thought Trout would probably settle in as more of a +6 to +7 WAR player, because his defense and baserunning would regress faster than his offense would improve.
And, really, his BABIP, his defense, and his baserunning have regressed somewhat. Trout’s UZR is just +0.5 despite spending about half of his games in left field, his BABIP is down to .357, and he’s only stolen 16 bases this year after swiping 49 last season. Trout noticeably bulked up over the off-season, and he doesn’t appear to be quite as fast as he was last year. He’s still a burner, but he’s probably not in the fastest player in baseball conversation anymore. So, in that sense, my expectations for Trout regressing have been vindicated.
Except, you know, his wRC+ has fallen from 166 last year all the way down to 163 this year. The BABIP correction has essentially been canceled out by an improvement in his contact rate, so he’s just not striking out as often as he was last year and the increase in balls in play has allowed him to maintain his offensive levels from last season. And, while his stolen base totals are down, he’s still taking a ton of extra bases, which shows up in his league leading +3.3 UBR, the part of our baserunning calculation that measures value from advancing my means other than stealing a base. Trout had a +5.0 UBR last year, so he’s actually on pace to get more value from his non-steal baserunning this season than he did in 2012.
Last year, Trout was the best 20-year-old in baseball history. This year, his performance is going to give him a shot at being the best 21-year-old in baseball history.
Right now, Gregor Blanco is on his way to his second above-average year as a key (if underrated) component in a championship outfield — “a dream come true” as he puts it. Just two years ago, though, he didn’t get a single major league plate appearance and found himself in Venezuela without a job. There was a moment, though, that sparked the change. A single decision, about a single body part, and Blanco found himself on the road to where he is now.
As we sneak up on July, we’re at a point where the buyers are starting to contact the sellers. As White Sox GM Rick Hahn said to MLB.com:
“Given the way we’ve played thus far, it’s not a real surprise we’ve had some phone calls — more of the vulture-type phone calls, the type that traditionally we’re more accustomed to making,” Hahn said. “But that’s part of the hole that we’ve dug for ourselves, that teams are going to look at us as potential sellers when the deadline comes, and they’re starting to lay a little bit of that ground work now.”
While the addition of a second wild card incentivizes bubble teams to hang onto their players a bit longer to see if they can make a second half run, there are eight organizations that shouldn’t have any false aspirations about how the rest of their 2013 season is going to go: The Astros, Marlins, Mets, Cubs, White Sox, Mariners, Twins, and Brewers. Minnesota has the best record of the group at 32-36, but they know they’re in full scale rebuild mode, and they shouldn’t diverge from the path-to-the-future that they began by trading away veterans for prospects over the winter. The other seven teams all have winning percentages below .440, and even if they had some pre-season optimism about their own club, they need to admit that it’s not happening this year.
Our rest of season forecasts have each team finishing with 75 wins or less, and given the 90+ wins it will likely take to secure a wild card spot, it’s time to face the music and start prioritizing 2014 wins. While the other 22 teams retain some chance of playoff glory, these are the eight franchises that should be putting their players on the market as we head into July. However, that list of sellers presents a problem for the teams looking to buy, especially teams who are hunting for a rotation upgrade: these eight clubs don’t really have good pitching to trade.
Matt Harvey didn’t throw a no-hitter against the Braves on Tuesday, but he did almost do that, not allowing a hit until the bottom of the seventh. It’s not that Harvey relied entirely on the strikeout — of the batters he faced, 13 didn’t whiff. But then, of the batters he faced, 13 did whiff, and Harvey’s season rate is verging on 30%. Matt Harvey was already good a year ago. Since then he’s only induced more grounders and cut his walk rate in half. Harvey, at this point, is in the argument for being the most valuable young pitcher in all of baseball.
Against the Braves, Harvey registered 15 swinging strikes on secondary stuff, which is outstanding. Yet he also picked up eight whiffs on his heater, which is kind of par for the Harvey course. No other starter’s fastball has led to so many swinging strikes, as Harvey can just be completely overwhelming. Instead of just using his fastball as a foundation, Harvey uses it also as a weapon, which is a rare gift. To have a swing-and-miss fastball is to have one hell of an advantage, and though fastballs tend to get slower over time, for now, at least, Harvey’s elite.
You all know the R.A. Dickey story by now. Journeyman major leaguer reinvents himself as a knuckleball thrower in his 30s, then refines the pitch to become one of the better starting pitchers in baseball, culminating with his selection as the National League Cy Young Award winner last year. The knuckleball is always a fascinating pitch, and Dickey is a fascinating guy, so there has been no shortage of media attention focused his direction.
While I was not working here at FanGraphs last year, I could not resist taking a belated look at some of Dickey’s dominating knuckleballs from that 2012 season. I’ve selected three particularly impressive pitches from that campaign and used an effect known as StroMotion to help track their movement.
“Nothing has ever come easy for me, especially the first time around,” — Oakland third baseman Josh Donaldson
Josh Donaldson played baseball for two high schools. Add to that college, two minor league sytems, and the pros, and he’s had to start over in a new place often over the course of his career. And, for the most part, he’s had a hard time at first. But with hard work and a few changes to his approach, he’s come back and been dominant. The process of acclimating, to Donaldson, is equal parts understanding himself and understanding the new situation.
Now that the draft is behind us and we’re only six weeks away from the trade deadline, we’re officially in rumor season. This time of year, we’ll be treated to an almost daily look at which teams might be buying or selling and what players could be changing uniforms before the end of July. The Phillies are probably the most interesting potential seller, because their roster is littered with big name players who would draw headlines if traded. Ruben Amaro has been clear that he does not intend to “blow up” the roster, but that doesn’t rule out making any trades at all, as he even noted that he didn’t think the Red Sox “blew up” their roster last year when they traded three of their most expensive players in one deal.
So, assuming the Phillies fall far enough back in the race to convince Amaro to be a seller, Jonathan Papelbon is probably going to be one of the most talked about trade targets of the summer. Contenders are always looking for bullpen help, and certain contenders — yes, Detroit, we’re talking about you — have glaring holes at the back end of their bullpen that could use a significant upgrade. Papelbon is still a terrific reliever, and his postseason track record will appeal to teams who put a lot of stock in experience in the ninth inning role.
However, I have a suggestion for any team that is considering giving up talent and taking on a good sized chunk of the roughly $34 million left on Papelbon’s deal; trade for Jesse Crain instead.
