Kevin Gausman had a career year with the San Francisco Giants last season. Pitching a personal-best 192 innings, the 31-year-old right-hander won 14 of 20 decisions while logging 227 strikeouts with a 2.81 ERA and a 3.00 FIP. Buoyed by that performance, he was bestowed a five-year, $110M contract by the Toronto Blue Jays, who inked him to a free-agent deal in December.

Gausman’s Giants experience was as educational as it was successful. Signed to a less-lucrative free-agent deal with San Francisco prior to the 2020 season, the LSU product embraced not only his new surroundings, but also the organization’s pitching development process.

“Their big thing over there is pitching to your strengths, and we’d do things to kind of teach ourselves what we’re good at,” explained Gausman, who’d previously pitched for the Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, and Cincinnati Reds. “For me, it was pitching up in the zone. My bullpens would be focused on strings up in the zone, trying to throw above them, and then on splits down in the zone.”

Brian Bannister, who Gausman called one of the best pitching minds he’s ever been around, played an important role. The righty pointed to Bannister’s knowledge of how grips work for each individual pitcher, how an arm path works, and “what you can do to manipulate a ball.” Gausman wasn’t the only beneficiary. San Francisco’s Director of Pitching also helped Anthony DeSclafani have a career year. Read the rest of this entry »

Bailey Falter is unique. As erstwhile FanGraphs scribe Devan Fink explained when he wrote about the 24-year-old Philadelphia Phillies left-hander last summer, Falter features a 92-mph fastball that is, for all intents and purposes, a 95-mph fastball. The effective velocity comes courtesy of extreme extension. A 6-foot-4, 195-pound native of Chino Hills, California, Falter has a delivery that puts him seven-plus feet off the mound when he releases the baseball.

Projected to be a valuable part of the Phillies bullpen this year — some evaluators feel he’ll ultimately secure a spot in the starting rotation — Falter is coming off of a rookie campaign where he logged a 5.61 ERA and a 3.79 FIP over 33.2 innings. He’s been impressive this spring; with the caveat that Grapefruit League performances need to be taken with a large grain of salt, the southpaw has been sharp, allowing just five baserunners in seven innings.

Falter discussed his delivery, and the repertoire that comes with it, following a recent game in Clearwater.

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David Laurila: You’re known primarily for your delivery, particularly the amount of extension you get. Have you always thrown that way?

Bailey Falter: “Yes. I’ve had the same delivery and extension ever since I can remember. Honestly. I had a pitching coach back home, when I was growing up, named Steve Lefebvre. He tried to tweak me up a little bit — kind of shorten me up — because I was a guy that was never going to light up a radar gun, and we thought it could possibly be due to me having such a long stride. I ended up throwing the same speed.” Read the rest of this entry »

Toronto Blue Jays pitching prospect Hagen Danner is a converted catcher who gets good ride on his four-seam fastball, and he attributes that quality to his former position. Hearing that from the 23-year-old right-hander prompted me to ask Philadelphia Phillies manager Joe Girardi if what I was told made sense.

“I can definitely see that,” said Girardi, who caught for 15 big-league seasons. “But I don’t think it’s a guarantee; some [catchers] have a little tail to their ball when they throw. At times, I would have a little tail. But [Garrett] Stubbs really gets underneath it, really gets that spin. There are a lot of catchers who do. It’s how we’re taught to throw.”

Good ride typically comes with a four-seam grip, but unlike pitchers, a catcher isn’t standing on a mound with ample time to manipulate the baseball in his hand; he has to receive the ball, make the transfer, and get rid of it as quickly as possible. I asked the catcher-turned-manager about that as well.

“You don’t have time to get the grip, but ideally you want to throw it straight,” said Girardi. “And you can still throw it straight, pretty much, if you don’t have a perfect four-seam grip.”

Detroit Tigers manager A.J. Hinch is likewise a former catcher, so I asked him the same questions I’d asked Girardi. Read the rest of this entry »

Rhys Hoskins hits for power. The 29-year-old Philadelphia Phillies first baseman went deep 27 times last year in 443 plate appearances; his home run totals in his previous full seasons were 34 and 29 respectively. Moreover, the most notable digits in his career .241/.360/.502 slash line are those of his slugging percentage. And then there is his average exit velocity. Last year, Hoskins ranked in the 83rd percentile for that particular metric.

Slugger bona fides aside, he’s no mere masher. Hoskins is a student of the art of hitting, and he has been since his days at Sacramento State University. That’s where he learned to hunt the heater, an approach that — as the numbers attest — has served him well.

Hoskins discussed his evolution as a hitter, and the mindset that helps him flourish in the batter’s box, at the Phillies’ spring training site in Clearwater on Wednesday afternoon.

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David Laurila: How do you identify as a hitter?

Rhys Hoskins: “I think I’m a hitter with a pretty good understanding of the strike zone. High on-base guy. High power guy with always a chance to hit for more average. That’s the way I would describe myself.”

Laurila: Many people view you as a power hitter. Do you like that label?

Hoskins: “I feel like when you hear ‘power hitter,’ there’s a little bit of all-or-nothing attached to that. So I don’t know if I would necessarily say I’m a power hitter. I think I’d rather say that I’m a hitter with some power.”

Laurila: Where, and from whom, did you learn to hit? Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 967

On this week’s show, David Laurila welcomes Alex Coffey, a sportswriter for The Philadelphia Inquirer covering the Philadelphia Phillies.

David and Alex both attended Nick Castellanos’ signing press conference in Florida, and discuss how the outfielder is going to fit on a team that may already struggle defensively. Alex also shares what it’s like to watch Bryce Harper take batting practice and lead a team, and how great it has been to interview Phillies like Rhys Hoskins and Kyle Gibson now that clubhouse access has been restored. We also hear about the team’s center field position battle and how Matt Vierling could potentially impress in the role.

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I recently asked a pair of prospects which of their former teammates have the best wheels, and on each occasion a 24-year-old middle infielder in the Boston Red Sox system was on the short list. One had him numero uno. The other deemed the speedster in question as being a step behind his first choice.

“Corbin Carroll, for sure,” was Ryne Nelson’s response to my question, the top pitching prospect in the Arizona Diamondbacks system naming the organization’s top position player prospect. “That dude flies.”

While that answer was anything but unexpected, is Carroll truly faster than David Hamilton, whom Nelson played with in the Cape Cod League?

“I think so,” said the righty. “I’ve never seen them together, but I have watched Corbin get from home to third in what felt like three seconds. Hamilton is definitely up there, but it seems like Corbin is the fastest player I’ve ever seen in my life. He can really burn around the bases.”

So too can Hamilton, whom Kody Clemens played with at both the University of Texas and in the independent Constellation League during the 2020 shutdown. Prior to my conversation with Nelson, the Detroit Tigers prospect had told me that Hamilton is the swiftest he’s taken the field with. Read the rest of this entry »

The Phillies continued to fill their outfield holes on Friday, signing Nick Castellanos to a five-year deal worth $100 million. Despite the decline in league-wide offense, the ex-Red had his best offensive season in 2021, hitting .309/.362/.576 with 34 home runs for a 140 wRC+ and 4.2 WAR. All those numbers were new career highs, and this was his first season in which he climbed over the three-WAR barrier.

It’s an enormous challenge to resist comparing the recent arcs of Phillies history to that of the Braves. Both teams saw a need to do complete rebuilds in the mid-2010s, aggressively accumulated prospects, and tried to time their big pushes into contention near particular landmarks. For the Braves, it was the new stadium, and for Philadelphia, a massive new television deal with Comcast Sportsnet worth $2.5 billion and company equity. Atlanta’s master plan unfolded just as envisioned: four consecutive division titles, culminating in the team’s first World Series championship since 1995. The Phillies, on the other hand, only just now put together their first winning season in a decade, and by the smallest possible margin.

The reasons for Philadephia’s lackluster rebuild results are myriad, but to simplify it, it comes down to two things. First: the inability, for whatever reason, to develop minor leaguers, both in-house and from trades, at the rate that the Braves were able to. Second: the willingness to make up for this gap, either with cleverness or financial resources. That’s not to say the Phillies were lackadaisical in their moves or unwilling to sign big free agents; they brought in Bryce Harper to a monster contract, landed Zack Wheeler, and regularly made trades to acquire talent like J.T. Realmuto and Jean Segura. But not all these moves worked out as well as they hoped, and there were too many holes on the roster that they tried to fill with wishful thinking. Read the rest of this entry »

Fifteen months ago, the Cubs non-tendered Kyle Schwarber following a subpar season, because they didn’t think he would be worth paying something in the neighborhood of $10 million. He landed on his feet with the Nationals, went on an epic home run binge in June, made his first All-Star team, and, after being traded to the Red Sox at the deadline, helped Boston make a run to the ALCS. On Wednesday, the 29-year-old slugger parlayed that big season into an agreement on a four-year, $79 million deal with the Phillies.

Schwarber set career bests across the board with a .266/.374/.554 (145 wRC+) line for the Nationals and Red Sox in 2021, thumping 32 homers en route to 3.1 WAR. He packed that production into just 471 plate appearances; among players with at least 400 PA in both leagues, he ranked 10th in slugging percentage and 11th in wRC+. He fell short of qualifying for the batting title because he lost six weeks to a right hamstring strain and was still on the injured list when he was sent to the Red Sox for pitching prospect Aldo Ramirez on July 29.

Schwarber’s season was actually a bit more uneven than those robust numbers suggest. Coming off a subpar .188/.308/.393 (89 wRC+) campaign with the Cubs in the pandemic-shortened 2020, he signed a one-year, $10 million deal with the Nationals but hit for just a 103 wRC+ with nine homers in April and May. He didn’t add his 10th homer until June 12, but from that point to the end of the month, he pounded 16 in just 83 plate appearances, a run that included four two-homer games and a three-homer game (his six multi-homer games overall tied Joey Gallo, Aaron Judge, and Salvador Perez for the major league lead). On June 19 and 20 against the Mets, he tied the major league record with five homers in two games, homering twice and driving in four runs in the seven-inning nightcap of a doubleheader, and then hitting three homers and driving in four runs the next day. From June 19 to 29, he mashed 12 taters in 10 games, tying Albert Belle for the major league record.

Unfortunately, just three days later, Schwarber strained his right hamstring and landed on the injured list, which put a damper on his first All-Star selection, announced just two days later. The Nationals, who went 19–9 in June to nose above .500 (40–38), sank to 8–18 in July and cleaned house at the end of the month, trading eight players off the major league roster, including franchise cornerstones Max Scherzer and Trea Turner. Flipping Schwarber as part of that housecleaning was a no-brainer. Read the rest of this entry »

While titans of industry like Matt Olson, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Donaldson were changing teams, a few other things happened in the baseball world. For example: Sean Doolittle, Brad Hand, Ian Kennedy, and Chad Kuhl all found new teams. Sure, they weren’t the headliners of the last few days, but they’re all interesting in their own way. Let’s run down these signings alphabetically and maybe tell a joke or two while doing so.

Nationals Sign Sean Doolittle

When the Nationals traded for Sean Doolittle in 2017, he brought much-needed bullpen stability to an already-competitive team. Things aren’t quite the same for either side in their reunion. Doolittle had a down 2020, then signed a one-year, $1.5 million deal with the Reds. With Cincinnati out of the running and Doolittle losing high-leverage opportunities, they put him on waivers, and he finished his season as a middle reliever in Seattle. Read the rest of this entry »

As expected, the first weekend after the end of the lockout gave us a flurry of moves. Relievers in particular were a hot commodity, with teams trying to bolster their bullpens as the pool of quality pitchers continues to shrink. Let’s take a closer look at a few of these moves from over the weekend.

White Sox Sign Joe Kelly

Kelly comes to Chicago on a two-year, $17 million deal with a club option for a third year. At 33, the veteran is coming off of a great season with the Dodgers, probably his best as a reliever. Underneath his 2.86 ERA, he posted a career-best swinging-strike rate (11.6%) and exit velocity (85.5 mph), as well as his lowest walk rate (8.2%) ever. Even with all the success, a pair of injuries raise questions about his durability moving forward. Kelly got a late start in 2021 because of an offseason surgery to clean up his shoulder, and his year ended with him walking off the mound in the playoffs after suffering a forearm injury. Luckily, he avoided the worst case scenario; all reports have him ready for the upcoming season.

Kelly’s successful 2021 came on the back of a dominant low-spin sinker. In each of the previous five seasons, his four-seam fastball was his most used heater, but after years of middling results with the pitch, he all but shelved it in 2021. A new sinker-heavy pitch mix helped increase his groundball rate over the years; his three primary pitches — sinker, curveball, and changeup — all generate grounders more than 55% of the time. Read the rest of this entry »