Oh, the things you find when perusing the leaderboards. While collecting data to discuss the decline in Jeremy Peña’s plate discipline, I went down a rabbit hole of player performances since May. As tends to happen, one thing led to another, and I ended up running my Cy Young predictor using only data since the start of May. Near the top of each league were pitchers whose presence surprised me even though I already knew both to be excellent. Each of them is on a borderline contender that is now very likely to make the playoffs, and each survives in the majors by relying on command rather than throwing 100-mph smoke. That’s right, I’m talking about Aaron Nola and Shane Bieber. Let’s examine each, starting with Nola, the top National League pitcher in my Cy Young predictor since May.

The Phillies look nearly certain to play postseason baseball. With a probability that is now over 90% by both FanGraphs’ and ZiPS’ reckoning, the Phils are on target to make the playoffs for the first time since 2011. While there have been runs that teased contention in past years, the Phillies have always seemed to end up floating somewhere around .500. But despite Zack Wheeler and Bryce Harper missing parts of the season, Nick Castellanos disappointing, and a defense that just begs for a Yackety Sax soundtrack, the team stands at 79-61. And while he’s obviously not the only player to have contributed to the club’s record, Nola’s impressive run makes him one of the key figures of the 2022 campaign. Read the rest of this entry »

We should know better by now than to doubt the Guardians. Every year it seems like they shed at least one important player, and every year (not literally every year, but most years) they scheme, finesse, and otherwise inveigle their way back to the playoffs. This year, Cleveland’s position players are playing great defense and striking out less than any lineup in the league. On the other side of the ball, Cleveland — and stop me if you’ve heard this one before — has managed to cultivate depth by developing talented starters internally.

You know these pitchers: Cy Young winner Shane Bieber, All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase, Triston McKenzie, James Karinchak (who’s so dangerous umps check his hair for weapons like he’s Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers). And Cal Quantrill.

During the month of August, when Cleveland asserted control over the AL Central for the first time, Quantrill made six starts, pitched at least six innings each time, and posted a total ERA of 2.13. Bieber and McKenzie get most of the credit for the Guardians’ run prevention success, and deservedly so. But in this age of inch-perfect 98-mph two-seamers and strikeout rates in the 30% range, Quantrill is a throwback: an effective pitch-to-contact innings-eater. That he belongs to a little-celebrated archetype of player does not diminish his value to a team that’s operated all year with little room for error. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday night, umpire Ted Barrett got up close and personal with James Karinchak:

No, Barrett wasn’t looking for hair care tips, or acting out an Herbal Essences commercial. He was checking for foreign substances at the behest of Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. Though he ruffled around to the best of his ability, Barrett didn’t find anything definitive. Karinchak made it back to the dugout with a narrow lead and his pitching eligibility intact, though his dignity may have been affected.

Baldelli’s accusation wasn’t some off-the-cuff act of pettiness. Karinchak has been at the sticky center of controversy ever since the league cracked down on pine tar, Spider Tack, sunscreen/rosin blends, and whatever other tacky options players were using to increase spin. Stricter enforcement of existing rules started at the beginning of June last year; take a look at Karinchak’s spin-velocity ratio and raw fastball spin rate and you can clearly see when things changed:

Not coincidentally, Karinchak’s results slipped at the same time. He’d been an unhittable, fire-breathing, back-of-the-bullpen monster since reaching the majors. From June 1, 2021 onwards, however, he posted a 5.40 ERA and a 5.41 FIP, and got demoted to the minors at the end of August. The fall from grace was swift, and seemed obviously related to the change in foreign substance enforcement. Read the rest of this entry »

The English Premier League postponed this weekend’s slate of games following the death of Queen Elizabeth on Friday. Some of you may not have known that — soccer isn’t everyone’s cup of tea — but at the same time, a lot of you did. For many FanGraphs readers, pouring a cup of coffee and watching a Saturday or Sunday-morning match is part of your routine. More often than not, it’s as a supporter of a particular Premier League team.

Brad Miller does exactly that. An ardent Manchester City fan, the Texas Rangers infielder “dove into European soccer” head-first while on the injured list a handful of years ago. What started as a diversion has turned into a passion. Miller not only keeps a keen eye on Premier League and Champions League matches, he assesses strategies and follows transfer rumors.

Style of play is a big reason he adopted Man City.

“They’re obviously really good, and I feel kind of bad admitting that,” Miller said of his initial attraction. “But they’re also a well-oiled machine. There was a documentary on Amazon, ‘All or Nothing,’ where they followed the team. That definitely had me intrigued, just watching the way they play.

“I kind of compare them a little bit to the Dodgers,” continued Miller. “They have a great market, great financial backing, and also a great infrastructure — their player-development system, scouting, medical staffs, and all that. The haven’t poured money into just purchasing players, they’ve poured it into a sustainable model.” Read the rest of this entry »

Most people who change employers and job titles go through an interview process, and Chris Valaika was no exception. A former big league infielder who’d been serving as the assistant hitting coach for the Chicago Cubs, and before that as their minor league hitting coordinator, he was carefully vetted before being hired as the hitting coach of the Cleveland Guardians last winter. What was that process like? He explained in an interview that was conducted earlier this summer.

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David Laurila: You were hired by the Guardians last November. How did that come about?

Chris Valaika: “The interview process started a week or so after the season ended. I talked to [President of Baseball Operations] Chris Antonetti and then to [General Manager] Mike Chernoff. The one that really facilitated the process was Alex Eckelman, our director of hitting. We did phone to start and then Zoom with a couple of different groups. Tito [Terry Francona] was on one of them. There were some of our advance guys. There were Chris and Cherny. I also did an in-person interview with a couple of different groups. I talked to the player development department. I also worked with a hitter. I went through the whole gamut.”

Laurila: Can you elaborate on “worked with a hitter?”

Valiaka: “It was a mock. We went through the whole process of… basically, it was a workup of what I saw in the swing, and how I would address swing changes and approach.”

Laurila: This was from video?

Valaika: “Yes. And we did a mock of an in-person, as well — how I would interact in the cage to address certain things — which was to see my coaching voice, how I delivered information. We also went through advance reports and did a mock hitters meeting.

“With the hitter breakdown, it was basically me giving my 10,000-foot view of him approach-wise, bio-mechanically, things that I saw in the swing, and again, how I would address them.”

Laurila: Who was the hitter, and what did you see? Read the rest of this entry »

If you want to play a game you probably won’t win, watch a reliever you haven’t heard of pitch one inning and try to decide if they’re good. I don’t want to say it’s impossible, because that’s not quite the case, but it’s phenomenally difficult. Do they throw hard? Probably, because most relievers do now. Do they have a secondary pitch that makes hitters look like they’re playing baseball for the first time? Probably, because trying to hit a slider when you just saw a fastball is one of the hardest things to do in sports.

The eye test isn’t enough. What’s worse, the results test isn’t enough. Reliever ERAs are unreliable across whole seasons, never mind a single week or month. One seeing-eye single, or one down-the-middle cookie that gets fouled back instead of pummeled to Kalamazoo, can completely change a pitching line. Even more “stable” statistics bounce around wildly in small samples; whether a reliever has their good slider working or not might be the difference between a three-strikeout outing or a few walks and a trip to the showers.

Why the long windup about how we can’t know how good pitchers are? Well, I’m pretty sure Guardians reliever Trevor Stephan is good, whatever the sample size. I know what I just said… but, look at his pitches, will you?
Read the rest of this entry »

In April, the baseball article subject of choice is often a player who has a scorching hot start to the season. We put him under scrutiny, examine his ins and outs, then ultimately shrug and say, well, maybe. Maybe it’s something! Then again, it could also be nothing. Months pass, and said player and their progress is never revisited. Instead, you’ll likely come across their remains in the dustiest corner of a box score, discovering a mere shell of a once-promising breakout candidate.

Let’s amend that. If there’s anyone who deserves a follow-up, it’s Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan, who ranked No. 57 on our 2022 Top 100 prospect list before the season and who captivated fans back in April with an endless stream of hits and a refusal to swing and miss. But a horrid May (.173/.271/.253) removed him from the community’s collective radar, consigning him to a Yermín Mercedes-like fate. Since then, however, Kwan has been outstanding: Following a productive summer, he’s brought up his slash line on the season to a respectable .295/.371/.389, for a 121 wRC+. This sport has seen countless one-month wonders; he isn’t one of them. Read the rest of this entry »

Alex Call’s first cup of big-league coffee came last month with the Cleveland Guardians. A 27-year-old outfielder who had spent his first three professional seasons in the Chicago White Sox system, Call logged two hits and four walks in 16 plate appearances before being returned to Triple-A Columbus on August 1. Six days later, the 2016 third-round pick out of Ball State University was designated for assignment and claimed off waivers by the Washington Nationals.

Call’s first big-league plate appearances came as a pinch hitter on July 11, one day after learning that he was getting called up. The pitcher on the mound was one of his former minor-league teammates in the White Sox system. Eleven days and six at-bats later, Call recorded his first hit in the majors. It came off the same pitcher.

Call, currently playing for Triple-A Rochester, discussed his milestone moments when the Guardians visited Fenway Park in late July.

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On learning that he was getting his first big-league call-up

“It was a Sunday game and I was actually off that day. I’d signed up to do the fun run afterwards — we do those on Sundays in Columbus — and when that was over, Andy Tracy, our manager, told me, ‘Hey, we’ve got a gift card for you. Thanks for doing that for the kids.’ I was like, ‘Sweet. I’ll take a gift card.’ He rustled around some papers in his office, then looked up and said, ‘Well, I can’t find it, but I don’t think you’ll need it in Cleveland. You’re going to The Show.’ After that, I called my family. Read the rest of this entry »

Shane Bieber isn’t a prototypical modern-day pitcher. Unlike many of his peers who are on the mound pumping gas, the 27-year-old Cleveland Guardians right-hander succeeds by slicing and dicing, carving up the opposition with an array of well-placed offerings. Bieber’s heater is averaging just 91.3 mph on the season, and even in his higher-velocity 2020 Cy Young Award year, he was anything but a radar gun darling. From the time he entered pro ball in 2016 as a fourth-round pick out of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Bieber has been a technician, not a flamethrower.

It’s hard to argue with the results. Over the past four seasons, Bieber is 36-19 with a 3.04 ERA and a 2.99 FIP in 513 innings. Despite a reputation for having nothing-to-write-home-about stuff, he’s fanned 641 batters while allowing just 427 hits. In 20 starts this year, Bieber has a 3.39 ERA and a 2.96 FIP, tied for ninth-best in the junior circuit.

Bieber discussed the art and science of pitching when the Guardians visited Fenway Park in the final week of July.

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David Laurila: At a time where a lot of guys are trying to overpower hitters, you’re viewed as a “pitcher.” With that in mind, where did you learn to pitch?

Shane Bieber: “I feel like I’ve been ‘pitching’ from a young age. My parents were involved — my dad was super involved — but the guy who taught me the most about pitching was Ben Siff. He was my travel ball coach for nine or 10 years, starting when I was nine years old. I’m still really close with him. Read the rest of this entry »

Detroit didn’t do much at the deadline. Trading Robbie Grossman to Atlanta in exchange for soon-to-turn 21-year-old pitching prospect Kris Anglin was the only move. Many expected more. A disgruntled fan base thought that Monday’s swap of an underachieving outfielder for a potential future asset would be the first of multiple deals for Al Avila’s underachieving team.

[Update/correction: The Tigers also traded reliever Michael Fulmer to the Minnesota Twins in exchange for Sawyer Gipson-Long, a 24-year-old 2019 sixth-round pick who was pitching at the Double-A level.]

The extent to which the relative inactivity was an indictment of Avila is a matter of opinion. Rival executives almost assuredly weren’t knocking down the GM’s door with appealing offers, and making trades for the sake of making trades is eyewash. Placating fans by simply moving pieces around doesn’t move the needle in any meaningful direction.

With a record of 43-66 and baseball’s 24th-rated farm system, which direction the club is heading in is far less clear than it was a year ago. Much for that reason, it’s easy to see why many in Motown would like to see Avila kicked to the curb.

Not everything that has gone wrong — and a lot has certainly gone wrong — can be placed squarely on the Detroit GM’s shoulders. But while this year’s plethorae of injuries and disappointing performances were largely beyond his control, Avila is nonetheless the architect of what has been a sluggish rebuild. The idea that said rebuild is in need of a rebuild of its own may be a valid one.

Which brings us to the crux of the issue at hand: Who can right the ship? Read the rest of this entry »