Suppose the amount of human knowledge in the universe is finite. And suppose we happen to have reached the limit; we have acquired as much as we can. And suppose further that this applies to baseball, as well. What if we have learned as much as we can about pitching, for example, and there is no more knowledge we can gain, try as we might? It’s a silly supposition, of course: there’s lots more to study and learn and there always will be until we crash into the sun. But I present this thought experiment to you because it’s as close to a real explanation for Rich Hill’s recent dominance as I can get.

There’s a very real chance you have no idea what or who I’m talking about at this point, so please, let me back up. Rich Hill the pitcher is who, and his two starts wherein he’s recorded 20 total strikeouts, a single walk, and given up all of three runs in 14 innings is what. The what is brought up because it’s odd. How odd? There have been 97 games this year in which a starting pitcher went at least seven innings with at least 10 strikeouts and walked at most one batter. There have been 2,235 games played this season, so 97 represents just 4% of the total games. The fact that Hill did it once is interesting. The fact that he did it twice is just bizarre.

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Even if you’re not a Boston Red Sox fan, you’re probably familiar with the Xander Bogaerts story. Big-time top prospect. Shortstop who has power. Pretty good plate discipline. Did some nice things right after his debut. Got off to a strong start in his first full season. Then: the collapse. I don’t need to give you the numbers — just imagine really terrible numbers. You’re there! So went Bogaerts, prior to his 2015.

This, though, has been a year of far more consistency. And far more promise.

It’s also been a year of change. Of significant change. Of major super massive change. We talk about players making adjustments all the time, but seldom do players make adjustments as big as Bogaerts has. If you’ve been paying attention, this isn’t exactly anything new. Owen hit on some of this in June. A player like Bogaerts, on a team like the Red Sox, doesn’t make a big change without a bunch of people noticing. But it’s one thing to notice what’s happened. It’s another to understand how dramatic this is.

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At the end of May, David Ortiz was posting a .309 OBP with just six home runs. The idea of Big Papi joining the 500 home run club this season was a pipe dream. Around that time, we heard an idea that had circulated many times in seasons past: Ortiz was done, kaput, finished. He was too old, his bat was too slow, and this time — really — he’d fallen off the cliff. There were articles about what was wrong with him, and for good reason.

Then Ortiz fixed those problems. From June 1st until today, he has put up a .389 OBP with 28 homers, good for a wRC+ of 172 (meaning he’s been 72% better than the average offensive player in the league). He’s put up an uncannily similar batting line to the one he posted last year. Take a look:

2015 Ortiz is 2014 Ortiz in terms of performance (he’s pretty much 2013 Ortiz too, for that matter). The walk and strikeout rates are especially remarkable in their consistency. So how did he get here? We’ve heard about Big Papi having issues in the early stages of the season before; what did he fix this time around to be able to reach the 500 home run milestone during 2015?

First, let’s go over what was wrong. Matthew Kory explained the issues with Ortiz’ approach in an early-June article: Ortiz was hitting too many ground balls, and both his average grounder and fly ball was more weakly-hit than his career-norm. That’s an issue when you’re a slow power hitter who is shifted by defenses at one of the highest rates in the major leagues, because those weak grounders almost always turn into outs.

Ortiz also faced a disproportionate share of left-handed pitchers in the first two months of the season. His career splits for lefties vs. righties are pretty stark (he owns a career 110 wRC+ vs. lefties and a 159 career wRC+ vs. righties), so it’s understandable that he couldn’t find his usual level of production out of the gate. Hitting a lot of weak grounders and facing a ton of lefties when you’re a left-handed hitter is a recipe for a slump.

Then the end of May rolled around. Ortiz sat on the bench for two days, studying tape of himself and most likely hoping that a mental break might turn things around. It worked: the time off marked the turning point of his season. Quite simply, Ortiz started hitting more fly balls after his short break, and he started hitting everything harder.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

Two seasons ago, I ranked the job security of each general manager and listed GM prospects. I think I did a pretty good job with both lists given what we knew at the time, and may do it again as Opening Day 2016 closes in. We’ve had less executive movement in the last few off-seasons than usual and it looks like the regression is happening this year, with four GM jobs currently open and a likely fifth coming soon. This seemed like a good time to cover each of the situations in flux and target some possible changes in the near future, along with some names to keep in mind as candidates to fill these openings.

The Open GM Spots
We have two teams without a top baseball decision-making executive, in Seattle and Milwaukee:

Mariners
The Mariners moved on from (now former) GM Jack Zduriencik recently, a long-rumored move that club president Kevin Mather admitted he waited too long to execute. Mather has said they’re looking for a replacement sooner than later (likely eliminating execs from playoff teams), with GM experience (eliminating most of the GM prospects you’ll see below), and that the team doesn’t require a rebuild (meaning a shorter leash and higher expectations from day one). This should prove to narrow the pool of candidates a good bit, but this is still seen as the best of the currently open jobs.

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Not unlike the rest of us, the Red Sox are just tossing in the surf waiting for the inevitable to happen. Inevitable demise = fun! Their starting pitching is a huge reason why they’re in this unenviable position, and as a starting pitcher for Boston, Joe Kelly is an individual part of that collective failure. Boston was depending on him to pitch like a major-league starter, to be serviceable, but mostly Kelly was just bad. But now, all of the sudden, he’s pitching well! Kelly has always had potential if not results to spare. Does the past month cancel out the rest of the season before it? Is Kelly a good pitcher now and, if so, should he be considered a part of the Red Sox’s rotation next season? Some people are saying yes. I’m saying slow down, some people!

On Aug. 1, Joe Kelly gave up five runs in five innings to Tampa Bay, the lowest-scoring team in the American League. That brought Kelly’s ERA up to 6.11, the highest it had been all season. It’s hard to call that the low point of Kelly’s season because he previously pitched so badly he was sent down to Triple-A, so perhaps we can stipulate it to be one of multiple low points. What’s worse: Slipping and falling into a cake, or the fact it was your boss’ wedding? Tough choice! In Kelly’s case we can ignore which is the lowest point, call it a bad season and move on to the rest of this article.

The lousiness of Kelly and his rotation-mates was not an insignificant point in now-ex-GM Ben Cherington getting replaced as head of baseball operations in Boston. Now, with new team president Dave Dombrowski in charge, the team is using the last few weeks of the season to assess players already on the roster in order to determine what must be done this offseason in preparation for next year. You might think the whole 6.11 ERA thing would have sealed Kelly’s fate, but over his past five starts Kelly is 5-0 with a 1.69 ERA. So, hooray, right? This is the Joe Kelly the team traded for last season! The one with great stuff, the one who can be a contributing member of a major-league rotation on the cheap, the one who can grow a mustache that you might not laugh at immediately upon seeing it (but you should)!

People are already writing Kelly into next year’s rotation because when we believe a player is capable of something and he goes out on the field and conforms to our beliefs, we tend to not look past those beliefs to any greater truths. “Joe Kelly: part of the failure of 2015” is now “Joe Kelly: part of the solution for 2016.” But is this Joe Kelly really any different from the one we saw earlier this season?

Read the rest on Just A Bit Outside.

In batted-ball velocity numbers, we’ve got a new toy. It’s hard to know exactly how to use it, as it goes with many new statistical toys. Without even a full year of sample size, we have no idea how accurate the data coming in is, how sticky batted-ball velocity is year to year, or how much of a skill it is. Even worse, the data is incomplete — velocity without angle is somewhat useless, and the angle that’s coming through is only for home runs.

Is there a short-term fix? Is there a way to combine batted-ball velocity with existing stats to make it useful in the short term? I think there might be, and I think the stories of Xander Bogaerts and Adrian Beltre might help us find this patch.

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It’s difficult to figure out where to start with Jackie Bradley Jr. You could start with his incredible defense, and actually that’s probably the right place to begin. You could look at this play, or this play, or this play, or if you have four minutes and 31 seconds you can watch some defensive highlights from 2014. Or just use Google. I’m sure you’ll come up with something good. That’s because Bradley is an exceptional outfielder. Someone with his defensive skills shouldn’t have to hit much to play regularly. “Not much” is still more than “none,” though, and it’s the difference between these two that has held Bradley back.

Bradley was called up four times in 2013, including at the beginning of the season to serve as the club’s starting left fielder. He hit .097/.263/.129 and was sent down as soon as the team got healthy enough to do so. He was called up three other times with varying degrees of failure, but the end result was a .617 OPS on the season. Even so, Bradley had hit at every level of the minors, including posting an .842 OPS for Triple-A Pawtucket in 2013 in between trips to Boston. The team decided he would be their starting center fielder in 2014. And he was. And his defense was close to perfect. His hitting was also perfect — though only on opposite day. Now, though, he’s hitting on all the regular kinds of days, too.

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The first inning of a debut is a sweaty time. Just look at Henry Owens as he stepped to the mound for the first time in the big leagues this past week. Your heart strains for him — not only in sympathy, but also because it’s just so obvious that his blood is racing through his veins and his vision is blurry. You can almost feel it just watching him.

You can see plainly that that the major league debut was full of butterflies for Owens. And so it was for Luis Severino. Just in a different way than most.

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Every so often, someone asks where I got my start. My first online conversations about baseball took place on the ESPN message boards, and I’m a Mariners fan, and that was back when the Mariners mattered. Around the turn of the millennium, the Mariners were entering the best era in franchise history. Between 2000 – 2003, the Mariners racked up more regular-season wins than anybody else. They ultimately crashed, and crashed hard, but four strong teams were built. Four competitive teams were built. It was terrific, except for the thing that was missing. In 2003, the Marlins of all teams won that thing. There was much debate over what a fan really wants. Say what you will about the Marlins, but they’ve brought home a couple trophies.

Here, I ask you what some might consider a fundamental question. There’s a poll at the end of this, and I want you to try to answer honestly, as a fan who’s presumably something more than just a casual observer. I’m going to go ahead and update my Mariners and Marlins examples. There are current(ish) teams who can fill the same roles. We’re all more familiar with what’s current!

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With Rick Porcello headed to the disabled list following a triceps injury, the Red Sox were in need of a starting pitcher for tonight’s start against the Yankees. Rather than turning to a Triple-A scrub to take Porcello’s spot in the rotation, the Sox opted to call up top prospect Henry Owens. Owens will take the mound in Yankee stadium tonight for his big league debut.

Owens, 22, has pitched exclusively at Triple-A Pawtucket this year, where he’s put up a 3.16 ERA and 3.68 FIP over 122 innings of work. The 6-foot-6 lefty has struck out 21% of the batters he’s faced, and has walked 11%. Other than Owens’ height, none of the figures cited above sound particularly impressive. Owens’ strikeout rate is hardly better than the International League average of 18.6%, and his walk rate is significantly worse than average. If you didn’t know any better, you might look at Owens’ 2015 stat line and conclude that he’s a fringe prospect.

Owens’ 2015 numbers may not be much to look at, but he performed markedly better in his first three seasons as a pro. In 2012, the year after the Red Sox took him 36th overall, Owens struck out 29% of opponent batters faced in Low-A. The next year, he whiffed 30% between High-A and Double-A in 2013. However, while the strikeouts were certainly encouraging, his 11% walk rate inflated his FIP to 3.61 over that span. Read the rest of this entry »