There are two predominant fastball types in the majors these days: the four-seamer and the sinker. The cutter usually gets categorized as a fastball too, and for some pitchers, like Corbin Burnes and Kenley Jansen, it certainly is one. Then again, most pitchers use their cutter as a secondary or tertiary offering, and the average cutter comes in at 89 mph; that’s closer to the average changeup than the average four-seamer. The cutter defies simple classification. Then there’s the split-finger fastball, which is nothing more than a misnomer. It’s an offspeed pitch, no doubt about it, and therefore “splitter” is the more widely accepted label nowadays.

So, back to those two fastballs. The four-seamer is essentially the “throw it as hard as you can” ball; if you hear someone use the generic term “fastball” to describe a particular pitch, this is the one they’re talking about. In terms of grip, a four-seamer isn’t all that different from the way any other fielder throws the baseball. The sinker, on the other hand, is a more specialized weapon. As the name suggests, it has more movement than a four-seam fastball, and it’s more useful for inducing weak contact than blowing the ball past the opposing batter. Yet, modern pitchers have been taking that “throw it as hard as you can” approach with their sinkers as well. Over the past four seasons, the average sinker is only 0.6 mph slower than the average four-seamer.

Thus far in 2023, 52 starting pitchers have crossed the 50-inning threshold while using both a four-seam fastball and a sinker at least 3% of the time. Of those 52, 83% throw both pitches within 1 mph of one another. All but two throw both pitches within 2 mph of one another. As you might have guessed, I’m here to write about the two exceptions, the two starting pitchers who throw their four-seamer and sinker nearly 3 mph apart: Shohei Ohtani and Dean Kremer. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Los Angeles Angels. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but I use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

If he never played another game, Mike Trout would waltz into the Hall of Fame. With three MVP awards, 10 All-Star appearances, and the number five ranking among center fielders in JAWS — all complied in fewer than 1,500 games spread across 13 seasons — he’s already accomplished more than most enshrinees. Hell, he recently surpassed Ken Griffey Jr.’s 83.8 career bWAR, in over 1,200 fewer games (he did so in fWAR early last year). So far this season, however, Trout is off to one of the worst starts of his career, and it’s fair to wonder if we’re seeing the tail end of his time as one of the game’s elite players.

Trout, who’s two months shy of his 32nd birthday, had a big night in Anaheim on Wednesday against the Cubs. In the top of the fourth, he robbed Ian Happ of a home run, then followed up by homering off Jameson Taillon in the bottom of the frame, his 14th dinger of the season. He added to his highlight reel via back-to-back pitches in the seventh inning, making impressive running catches on flies off the bats of Miguel Amaya and Matt Mervis.

Mike Trout is still pretty damn good at baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani had a weird night in Baltimore on Monday, at times spectacular and at times unsettling. As a hitter, he went 4-for-5 with a huge three-run homer and three runs scored in the Angels’ 9-5 win. As a pitcher, he matched a career high by serving up three homers and allowing five runs in seven innings, continuing a string of shaky outings. One can’t blame the guy for having some mixed emotions.

Ohtani the pitcher was not at his best, yielding a two-run homer to Adam Frazier in the second inning, erasing a 1-0 lead. He walked Jorge Mateo to lead off the second inning, then allowed a two-run homer to Anthony Santander, costing him a 3-2 lead. By the time he got around to giving up his third homer of the night, he at least had a 9-4 lead and the bases empty in the fifth inning when Cedric Mullins took him over the wall; he would retire seven of the eight batters he faced after that to end his night on the mound. Read the rest of this entry »

Logan O’Hoppe has been one of the bright spots of the Angels’ up-and-down season, but unfortunately, the 23-year-old rookie catcher may have played his last game in 2023. On Sunday, the team revealed that O’Hoppe will need surgery to repair the torn labrum in his left shoulder, an injury that is expected to sideline him for four to six months.

The 23-year-old backstop first injured the shoulder while swinging the bat last Monday in Boston, but he remained in the game and played the next three as well. “It felt fine after it popped back in, in Boston,” he told reporters on Sunday, describing what sounds like a subluxation, not unlike what Fernando Tatis Jr. frequently experienced before undergoing surgery last September. “I mean, you hit three or four balls over 100 [mph], you think you’re fine,” he added.

Alas, O’Hoppe reaggravated the injury while hitting a single in the ninth inning of Thursday night’s 9–3 loss at Yankee Stadium. He fell down in obvious pain after hitting a hot smash down the third base line, recovered to run to first base on what otherwise would have been a double, then exited for a pinch-runner.

The Angels put O’Hoppe on the injured list on Friday, and by Sunday his season was in jeopardy. Only after he undergoes surgery on Tuesday will the prognosis be more clear, though for the moment he and the Angels have some optimism that a return in late August or September will be possible. Read the rest of this entry »

Tucker Davidson is looking to establish himself as a Los Angeles Angel. Acquired by the Anaheim-based AL club at last year’s trade deadline in the deal that sent Raisel Iglesias to Atlanta, Davidson is doing so with an approach heavily influenced by analytics. An admitted pitching nerd, the 27-year-old left-hander is well-versed in the metrics, and he’s using them to improve his craft.

He’s off to a solid start this season. Currently pitching out of the bullpen — the bulk of his professional experience has been as a starter — Davidson has a 2.53 ERA and a 2.48 FIP over four appearances comprising 10-and-two-thirds innings. His ledger includes both a win and a save.

Davidson sat down to talk pitching when the Angels visited Fenway Park this past weekend.

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David Laurila: You’re a pitching nerd. How did that come about?

Tucker Davidson: “I kind of fell into it — how the ball moves, and the whole analytical part — around 2015-2016 when I was in college and first getting drafted. I was interested in why my fastball didn’t spin a bunch, but I could still throw four-seams and get swings and misses up in the zone. I wondered why I couldn’t make a two-seam sink much. Why is my slider good? It was basically a ‘Why is that?’ Read the rest of this entry »

Logan O’Hoppe is a promising young hitter. No. 51 on our 2023 Top 100 Prospects list, the 23-year-old catcher is coming off a season during which he logged a 159 wRC+ and hit 26 home runs between a pair of Double-A stops. Dealt from the Phillies to the Angels in early August — Brandon Marsh went east to Philadelphia — O’Hoppe went on to make his big league debut with Los Angeles in late September. He saw action in five games and notched four hits in 14 get-your-feet-wet at-bats.

O’Hoppe broke camp as the Halo’s primary catcher this spring and has proceeded to slash .244/.300/.533 with four home runs and a 122 wRC+ over 50 plate appearances. He talked hitting prior to Sunday’s game at Fenway Park.

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David Laurila: When and how did you learn to hit?

Logan O’Hoppe: “I’m still learning. I think it’s something that none of us have completely figured out. But yeah, just taking reps; I feel like that’s the best way to do it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Billy Wagner was the club’s closer when Craig Kimbrel joined the Atlanta Braves in 2010. Thirty-nine years old by season’s end, Wagner logged the last 37 of his 422 career saves, and he was as dominant as ever while doing so. Over 69-and-a-third innings, the left-hander fanned 104 batters while allowing just 38 hits.

Kimbrel, who was just 21 years old when he debuted that May, was every bit as overpowering. In 21 appearances comprising 20-and-two-thirds innings, the rookie right-hander fanned 40 batters while allowing just nine hits. Along the way, he recorded the first of what is now 395 saves.

I’ve had a Hall of Fame vote for three years, and in each of them I’ve put a checkmark next to Wagner’s name. This coming winter, I plan to do so again in what will be his penultimate year on the ballot (assuming he doesn’t get voted in; Wagner received 68% of support in his last go-round).

Kimbrel will soon celebrate his 35th birthday, and while the end of his career is fast approaching, he’s still pitching. Will he likewise be getting my vote once his name appears on the ballot? And what about Kenley Jansen? Still going strong at age 35, he’s also got 395 saves, tying him with Kimbrel for seventh on the all-time list, directly behind Wagner.

Let’s compare some of their numbers:

Wagner: 422 saves, WPA 28.40, 187 ERA+, 2.73 FIP, 6.0 H/9, 11.9 K/9.
Kimbrel: 395 saves, WPA 22.99, 174 ERA+, 2.38 FIP, 5.2 H/9, 14.3 K/9.
Jansen: 395 saves, WPA 24.72, 161 ERA+, 2.44 FIP, 5.8 H/9. 13.0 K/9. Read the rest of this entry »

In case you were worried that Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge somehow forgot how to be excellent at baseball since the end of last season, fear not. The 2021 and ’22 American League Most Valuable Players are off to strong starts this season, highlighted by a shared distinction: both have gotten on base in every game thus far, extending lengthy streaks that have carried over from last season.

Admittedly, on-base streaks aren’t as sexy as hitting streaks. Nobody rhapsodizes about them or scrutinizes their mathematical unlikelihood the way they do Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak from 1941. Comparatively few people — professionals as well as fans — could tell you who holds the record for consecutive games getting on base. The answer is Ted Williams in 84 straight games from July 1 through September 27 in 1949, which makes perfect sense given that the Splendid Splinter is the career on-base percentage leader (.482). DiMaggio is a distant second at 74 games, with his more famous streak occupying games 2–57 of the longer one. Williams also owns the third-longest streak at 72 games bridging 1941 (the year he hit .406) and ’42, but as for the fourth-longest one — and the longest of the post-1960 expansion era — it belongs to Orlando Cabrera, he of the career .317 OBP and 83 wRC+. Cabrera reached base in 63 straight games from April 25 through July 6 in 2006. Go figure. Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the things that happened in baseball this weekend, the only one I cared about was a Double-A game between the Chattanooga Lookouts and the Rocket City Trash Pandas. Now, I know what you’re thinking. If an April Double-A game is worth caring about at all, it must be a real doozy. To have it overshadow a weekend of MLB action — the Rays went to 9-0, Jordan Walker tied Ted Williams’ record for longest career-opening hitting streak, Oneil Cruz got hurt — well surely I must be exaggerating.

Try this on for size: The Trash Pandas led 3–0 heading into the seventh and final inning of the game, having not allowed a hit. They went on to lose that game 7–5, still not having allowed a hit. “You can’t predict baseball” is a bit of a cliché; baseball has been around for more than 150 years. All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. But allowing seven runs while preserving a no-hitter? That’s worthy of detailed examination. Read the rest of this entry »