The Learning and Developing a Pitch series returned last month after being on hiatus due to the pandemic. Each week, we’ll hear from three pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features a southpaw, Damon Jones, and a pair of right-handers, Zach McCambley and Josh Staumont, on their curveballs and sliders.

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Damon Jones, Philadelphia Phillies prospect

“My slider is kind of seam-shifted. I get a lot of horizontal — something like 23 inches, which is pretty crazy — and I kind of picked it up off a Pitching Ninja video. It was Trevor Bauer’s grip, but I changed it up a little bit. It was more my thumb. I left the fingers how he had them, but he touches his thumb and I kind of hook it on the bottom part of the horseshoe. I think that helps the ball come out of my hand a little bit later. Watching the video, he wanted to get it out early and let it spin. I want it to be more of a late, back-foot pitch. The more I can make it look like a fastball the better, and it’s been pretty similar for me in terms of release point, release height, and all that.

“This was in 2019 — I made the jump from High-A to Triple-A that year — and it was shortly after spring training. After my first or second start in High-A, I was toying with stuff, saw the grip, and started throwing it. The guy on the Rapsodo was like, ‘Can you repeat that pitch? Can you do it again?’

“Then, when I got to Double-A, Tommy Hunter was rehabbing with us. He told me, ‘It’s like an Andrew Miller type of slider, it’s just wipeout.’ I was like, ‘Well, he’s got a lot of showtime and has seen a lot of guys with good sliders, and he’s comparing me to the guy Andrew Miller was when he was in his prime.’ I was like, ‘I’ll take that.’ Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani is a unicorn in terms of two-way talent, but he’s not the only player who has shown an ability to provide value on both sides of the ball. And you don’t need to go back as far as Babe Ruth or Negro Leagues legend Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe to find examples. It’s not that long ago that Mike Hampton was putting up healthy offensive numbers in the DH-less National League, and Michael Lorenzen was pinch-hitting and playing the outfield for the Reds just two years ago. There is also Brendan McKay — he of the repaired labrum — who would presumably welcome a return to two-way play if the Rays were to give him that opportunity.

Cade Cavalli could conceivably handle his own as an Ohtani-lite. The top pitching prospect in the Washington Nationals system performed solely on the mound in his junior year at the University of Oklahoma, but he was both a pitcher and a corner infielder in the two years prior. And he raked. Cavalli’s sophomore numbers with the Sooners included a .319/.393/.611 slash line with five doubles, a pair of triples, and four home runs in 88 plate appearances. Including his freshman output, the Tulsa native went deep 10 times as a collegian.

I asked Cavalli for his thoughts on two-way players in MLB this past Friday.

“It takes a special person to be able to do that,” said Cavalli, who pitched in the Futures Game and is currently with the Double-A Harrisburg Senators. “There’s a lot that goes on; it’s not just playing in the game every single day. There’s early work, hitting, you’ve got your conditioning as a pitcher, you’ve got position work. It can take a toll on someone’s body. Read the rest of this entry »

In late June and in just his fourth major league start, Marlins right-hander Zach Thompson accomplished something that has only been done nine times in the last decade. Facing the Nationals, he went six innings, allowed just two runs (one earned), and struck out 11. In the process, he became the 10th pitcher in the last 10 seasons to strike out 11 or more batters in his first four career appearances — certainly a qualifier-heavy fact, but it still yields quite an impressive list of names:

As the table shows, it’s rare to break into the major leagues with the level of dominance that Thompson displayed, but his path here has been even more fascinating.

In perhaps the most innocuous of moves, the Marlins signed Thompson last November as a minor league free agent to serve as additional bullpen depth. Even still, he was one of the team’s top targets on the minor league free-agent market, Marlins director of pro scouting Hadi Raad told Christina De Nicola of MLB.com, in what he said was based on a blend of scouting and analytics. As Marlins manager Don Mattingly told De Nicola after Thompson’s start against the Nationals, “It’s like, ‘How does this guy get away from teams?’ I liked his stuff, but you never know where that goes, too, after spring training. Sometimes those guys go to Triple-A and you never see them again. Zach, I think, started a little slow, and then kind of got it going. He’s been impressive, so hopefully this just keeps going.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Blue Jays are roughly where they planned on being heading into the season: 40-36 and on the periphery of the Wild Card chase. They’re doing it roughly the way they expected — with big seasons from their young boppers (Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is an MVP front runner, Bo Bichette has been excellent) and timely contributions from their opportunistic offseason spending spree (Marcus Semien has been excellent, Robbie Ray looks solid).

Despite those bright spots, however, the team has plenty of room for improvement. The outfield, which looked like a potential strength coming into the season, has been hamstrung by a quad injury to George Springer; he’s made only 39 plate appearances so far this year. Teoscar Hernández has played the field in his place, and while he’s hitting well, he’s a better fit at DH. He’s also right-handed, a trait the team’s four primary outfielders share. The bullpen has been disappointing as well; Jordan Romano and Tim Mayza have impressed, but that’s about it.

To address this concern and simultaneously shore up the bullpen, the Blue Jays made a trade with the Marlins. Adam Cimber, Corey Dickerson, and an undisclosed amount of cash are headed to Toronto (well, to Buffalo at least) in exchange for Joe Panik and Andrew McInvale, as Craig Mish and Jon Heyman first reported. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Goldstein and I have updated the pro portion of the Top 100, which means we quickly reviewed the placement of players in the 50 FV tier and above, and considered who was not yet in those tiers but should be based on how they’ve looked during the first month of the 2021 season. I still have three total org audits to do — Milwaukee, Oakland and the Cubs — before I start peeling graduates off the list. Those will be completed shortly. You can find the updated list here.

Also, if you missed it, Kevin and I updated our draft rankings and posted a Mock Draft on Monday.

The lone change up near the top of the 100 is Riley Greene moving into the top 20; he’s in the mix with several other similarly-aged players with the talent to be consistent All-Stars, like Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodríguez, and Corbin Carroll.

DL Hall moved into the 55 FV tier on the strength of his stuff. He’s still walking a fairly high rate of opposing batters but just on the strength of his three plus pitches, could be a Haderesque relief weapon even if he can’t start. Read the rest of this entry »

I like the Marlins pitching staff. There’s a certain charm to a rotation that mostly consists of farm-grown talent, and it’s a powerhouse, too. Sandy Alcantara and Trevor Rogers have become two of the league’s more reliable starters by virtue of their electric stuff, with room for further growth. The bullpen is home to a diverse group of relievers whose idiosyncrasies are so irresistible that we’ve written about a member of Miami’s relief corps not once, but twice – and it’s not even the offseason! Collectively, the Marlins ‘pen has accrued 2.7 WAR, good for fourth-best in the majors.

Rarely is there one reason for success like this. In all likelihood, the Marlins have excelled at pitching because they just happen to roster good pitchers. With teams increasingly tailoring plans to the needs of individual pitchers, team-wide dogmas and philosophies are harder to find. So what follows isn’t an explanation. Rather, it’s a series of observations I find noteworthy. Up first, here’s a graph showing each team’s average vertical break on its four-seam fastball (abbreviated as “fastball” from here on):

Though the gap between first and last is only a couple of inches of movement, we can still glean certain teams’ preferences. For example, teams like the Dodgers, White Sox, and Yankees have a predilection for fastballs that generate ample ride. You know the drill – throw them up in the zone and chances are hitters will swing and miss. It’s a tried and true approach. Read the rest of this entry »

When Kevin Goldstein previewed each NL team’s trade deadline reach-out calls earlier this week, he listed a smorgasbord of available Marlins. Corey Dickerson, Jesús Aguilar, Miguel Rojas, Starling Marte; if you’re looking for a hitter, the Fish have you covered. Want to shore up your pitching and catching? Sandy León, Yimi García, and Ross Detwiler say hello.

If I were calling the Marlins, though, I’d be tempted to skip that extensive selection and order off-menu, as you might with Wondee Siam or, if you’re less of a cheap New York dining hipster, In-N-Out Burger’s well-known but unlisted selections. Forget those brand name offerings; I’d be interested in finding out what it costs to get John Curtiss.

Curtiss hasn’t been a Marlin for life. He’s not an under-appreciated gem they’ve nurtured through their farm system. In fact, he started in the Twins system and excelled in the minors before scuffling (15 IP, 7.20 ERA) in two brief call-ups. The Twins shipped him to the Angels to ease a roster crunch, the Angels granted him free agency, and a brief stop with the Phillies ended with 12 poor minor league innings and a release.

That’s not quite a fairy tale story, but then things got interesting: the Rays, who know a thing or two about finding undervalued relievers, entered the picture. He carved through the AL East in 2020, but got shelled in the postseason. With the Rays facing a 40-man roster crunch (water is wet, the sky is blue, and the Rays have too many viable major leaguers), they traded him to the Marlins in exchange for Evan Edwards, a fourth-round pick in 2019.

The general story — the Rays turn a pitcher they found on the ground into a valuable draft pick — favors Tampa Bay, but in this case, Curtiss looks like a diamond in the rough. He’s always had some juice — he throws a mid-90s four-seamer and an upper-80’s slider, and both pitches miss their fair share of bats. He put up 30% strikeout rates nearly every year in the minors, and that’s mostly continued in the bigs. Read the rest of this entry »

In May, I took a look at some of the most compelling storylines in the American League for the teams least likely to make the postseason. Since that post ran, Shohei Ohtani has been involved in a benches clearing incident (don’t worry, he’s fine) and Miguel Cabrera inched closer to his 3,000th hit with this bases-clearing double to put the Tigers ahead of the Brewers:

The Brewers are in first place in the NL Central right now, so they will not be making another appearance in this post, as our projections like their chances in a tight division race and predict that they’ll hold that spot to win the division. No, this post is for the teams that are much less likely to make the postseason — the teams that won’t play meaningful baseball in October, but that can hopefully still offer something to the fans who continue to show up. Let’s delve into the prospects, players, and milestones on the horizon for the non-contenders in the Senior Circuit. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Adrian Hernandez, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Dunedin  Age: 21   Org Rank: NR   FV: 35
Line: 3 IP (relief), 1 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 7 K

Notes
The 21-year-old Mexican righty induced 14 swings and misses last night, per BaseballSavant, by far the most in the game and an especially high number for someone who only pitched three innings. Of the 52 pitches Hernandez threw last night, a whopping 24 of them were changeups, which is how he garnered most of those whiffs. Interestingly, Hernandez’s changeup is of the high-spin variety and tends to finish to his glove side, which at first glance made me wonder if it was being labeled correctly by Savant, but this is indeed Hernandez’s changeup and it has been very effective. His strike-throwing has been a bit of an issue this season and there’s little body projection here, but Hernandez is a young-ish arm with an out pitch and viable arm strength, so he’s worth monitoring. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a lot of ways you can introduce a person. You can talk about their appearance, traits, maybe even their likes or dislikes. Tasked with breaking the ice on Marlins reliever Richard Bleier, though, this is how I would start. From 2016 to ’19, here’s his yearly strikeout rate versus the league average:

Bleier had been famous for not generating strikeouts, zigging when other prolific relievers were zagging. It makes sense when you consider his repertoire, which consisted mostly of a sinker, a cutter, and the occasional changeup or slider. The sinker led the charge, inducing a copious amount of grounders, while the other offerings were mixed in to throw hitters off-guard. The strategy worked, too. Bleier boasted a 1.97 ERA and 3.59 FIP in 119 innings between 2016 and ’18, and while his 2019 returned uncharacteristic results (a 5.32 ERA and 4.19 FIP), nothing suggested a fatal flaw. Sometimes, you have a bad year.

I’ve established Bleier as someone who thrives on weak contact. But you’ve read the title. One of the perks of being a baseball writer is getting to revisit the FanGraphs pages of players you’re fond of, as work. It’s like catching up with an old friend. I hadn’t paid attention to Bleier in a while, so imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this development:

Weird, right? Most of the time, this type of breakout is the result of pitchers refining their already electric stuff, like Matt Barnes or Dustin May; their strikeout rates climb from average to great. But consider Bleier, whose dramatic increase has brought him just up to par, with a current strikeout rate of 24.3% that is a mere 0.1 points higher than the league average of 24.2%.

Read the rest of this entry »