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Ike Davis homered in the season’s second game. He homered twice a couple weeks later, then he homered again a week after that. That makes it sound like Davis hit a flurry of home runs, which he didn’t. He hit four over a handful of weeks. But then, after going deep on April 25, he didn’t go deep again until the beginning of June. On June 2, Davis took Kevin Slowey deep to center in Miami, and Ron Darling chimed in innocently enough:

Well let’s see if that can get Ike going.

Davis singled in his next at-bat. Then he went 1-for-14. Finally, after weeks of speculation and strong denial and halfhearted denial, the Mets gave Davis a demotion to Triple-A, his OPS standing at an even .500. It’s been Davis’ contention that he can’t learn to hit major-league pitchers in the minor leagues. The Mets, though, would like to see him at least hit minor-league pitchers. They’d like to see him at least hit someone.

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Yasiel Puig has been in the Major Leagues for a week. In the seven days since he was called up from Double-A, he’s hit as many home runs as Andre Ethier has all season. He’s already doubled Matt Kemp’s 2013 home run total. He ended his first game in the majors by starting a double play, throwing a laser from right field to nail a runner retreating to first on a long fly ball. Puig-mania is in full effect, and needless to say, he’s not going back to the minor leagues no matter how many Dodgers outfielders eventually return from the DL.

It’s hard not to get caught up in the excitement. If you’ve missed his absurd debut, MLB.com has an embeddable five minute video of his early accomplishments, so you can relive the glory of Yasiel Puig’s incredible first week below. Read the rest of this entry »

We are a little more than two months into the season, and that means it’s time to check on early season velocity trends. As I’ve mentioned before, declines in velocity are a less reliable signal in April and May than in June and July, but nevertheless large declines can still be a solid predictor that a pitcher’s velocity has in fact truly declined and will remain lower at season’s end. Almost 40% of pitchers that experience a decline in April — and almost 50% in May — will finish the season down at least 1 mph. And while the signal gets much stronger in July, 40% is still a pretty sizable number.

So let’s take a quick look at the major decliners from April and May.

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Hey there, you, and welcome to the first part of the ninth edition of The Worst Of The Best. This right here is a link to the first part of the eighth edition, from last Friday. This right here is a link to the series section, where you can find all of the posts from the beginning. You should know that the federal government has been secretly monitoring this series, including the posts and all of the comments underneath. But because of the .gifs I unwittingly managed to lock up all their computers so there’s a chance I may have destroyed the whole program. I’m sorry, or, you’re welcome, depending. Let’s not get into that! Leave your feelings on that matter on some other blog, like NotGraphs.

Here is where we talk about wild pitches, that weren’t officially “wild pitches” but that were pitches really far from the center of the strike zone. They’re not necessarily pitches that were really far from the target, but I can’t measure that so we make do with a bunch of two-strike breaking balls. It’s a PITCHf/x top-five that excludes intentional balls for obvious reasons, and pitches just missing the cut this week include one from Antonio Bastardo to Rickie Weeks, one from Justin De Fratus to Logan Schafer, and one from Dane De La Rosa to Jason Castro. Also, others. There are .gifs, and you know that by now, and I don’t know how to make them load faster, and the list is starting, and if this takes forever to load, it’s right to be frustrated. It’s right to be frustrated. Just know that I already know.

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You’re going to see a lot of college seniors taken in the middle rounds of the draft today, as teams look to save bonus pool money in order to take a shot on an over-slot pick that they either drafted yesterday or might look to take at a certain spot today. College seniors often sign for a relative pittance since they don’t have any real alternatives other than to sign for what they’re offered. While college juniors can always threaten to go back to school, seniors don’t have a stick with which to negotiate, so their price falls accordingly.

That is the kind of leverage — the pressure created by having an alternative option — that most people are familiar with, at least in terms of how things work in MLB. The secondary path forces teams to negotiate a fair price, and players without a valid alternative sign for a deep discount. That theory holds in some cases, but Mark Appel is about to demonstrate that leverage can come in other forms as well.

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You know all about xFIP, because you read FanGraphs, and it’s a distinctly FanGraphs-y statistic. You don’t quite know how you feel about it. Some pitchers demonstrate an ability to suppress runs more than one would expect. Some pitchers appear to be unusually homer-prone. Lots has been written about the handful of apparent exceptions, but xFIP isn’t trash, as some might suggest. Most generally, it does a good job of separating the good pitchers from the bad ones. Good pitchers get strikeouts, limit walks, and don’t allow homers. Most pitchers with weird-looking home-run rates will regress. One wants to argue with xFIP, but it isn’t easy, except on the margins. It contains a lot of truth.

This year, 56 American League starters have thrown at least 50 innings. Felix Hernandez leads with 90.2; we find Felix Doubront at 50, exactly. Here are the top four, by xFIP:

1. Anibal Sanchez
2. Felix Hernandez
3. Yu Darvish
4. Max Scherzer

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At this point, everyone knows the story of the Cardinals stealing Albert Pujols in the 13th round of the 1999 draft. In terms of production for the cost, it’s probably the best draft pick in Major League history. Well, apparently, the Cardinals are good at this whole 13th round draft pick thing, because exactly 10 years after they unearthed Pujols, they struck gold again.

Their 2009 13th round pick? Matt Carpenter. He was a senior sign out of Texas Christian University, a budget pick who only cost them a $1,000 signing bonus. After signing, the Cardinals had him split time between short-season and two A-ball levels. At low-A, he drew some walks but showed no power — in part because he hit flat footed with no weight transfer — and was terrible when he got promoted to high-A, hitting .219/.286/.342 in 128 plate appearances. 23-year-old non-athletes who can’t hit A-ball pitching a few months after signing for $1,000 are the definition of non-prospects.

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Walk around AT&T Park and ask people inside and outside of the organization what’s wrong with Matt Cain and you’ll get a different answer every time:

“He’s tipping his pitches from the stretch.”
“It’s just the Cardinals, that’s all.”
“The Cardinals got our signs from Bengie Molina.”
“It’s his command.”

It’s worth trying each pair of pants on, but there’s also one person who might have special insight on this matter. Matt Cain.

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Matt Moore was a tippy-top pitching prospect, and like all tippy-top pitching prospects, he was supposed to become an ace. Based on his current sub-3 ERA and number of strikeouts, he’s arrived at a young age. Based on the rest of the picture, Moore remains at least partially unfinished, as he continues to struggle with command consistency. But that’s “unfinished,” relative to perceived ceiling. And players, of course, don’t always reach their ceilings. Most of them fall well short. Just how “finished” is Matt Moore?

Command has been a problem for Moore in the past. Here’s a thing from this past spring:

With Opening Day now a week away, Moore said he isn’t too concerned about his command issues.

“I’m pretty competitive,” he said. “It’s not so much that I can turn it on, but when the time comes around and I’m battling in those moments, when I have runners in scoring position, it’s better (when it’s the regular season).”

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After finally giving up on the idea of Danny Espinosa being able to produce while playing with a fractured wrist, the Nationals have promoted top prospect Anthony Rendon to take his place on the roster. And, by doing so, the Nationals are going to become the latest team to join the growing trend of changing the second base profile.

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