Who is the most underrated player in the game? The question isn’t an easy one, and that’s especially true for the combatants themselves. Asked for their opinions, a handful of players I approached in recent weeks figuratively threw up their hands. Of the 12 who did come up with names, a majority had to chew on the question before providing an answer. Almost to a man, the initial response was some form of, “Man, that’s tough.”

I posed the question with one ground rule. Players were allowed to name a current teammate, but only if they also named someone from another team. I also offered leeway on “most.” If choosing just one was too challenging, they could simply give an example of a player they consider to be underrated.

The answers, all procured at Fenway Park, are as follows.

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Jose Altuve, Houston Astros

“I’ll say Kyle Tucker. I think he’s one of the top-five best players in the league. He doesn’t get enough credit. For me, he’s an MVP type of player. I think he’s going to win multiple MVPs in his career.

“A guy on another team… give me a minute. I’ll say Javier Báez. People obviously give him some credit, but I think he is way better than what a lot of people think. What he brings to the team, to the league, to the fans… he’s fun to watch. He’s got power. He hits. He plays defense. He does everything. I would pay for a ticket to watch him.” Read the rest of this entry »

Taylor Davis plans to stay in the game once his playing days are over. Currently on the roster of the Indianapolis Indians — Pittsburgh’s Triple-A affiliate — the 32-year-old catcher intends to become a coach, a manager, or a decision-maker in a front office. He’s already received overtures for one of those positions.

“The question does get asked,” said Davis, whose resume includes 22 MLB games over parts of four seasons. “It’s something that started even before I got to the big leagues. The first time I got asked if I wanted to coach was in 2017. That was early in the year, and then I ended up making my debut later that season. Obviously, I want to play for as long as I can, but after it’s done, doing something within the game is what I want.”

Managing might be his primary down-the-road goal, but the erstwhile Chicago Cub would also be well-suited for a corner-office role. Asked about that possibility, Davis said that he’d be equally happy wearing a polo shirt or a uniform. Roster construction and “the whole business side of the game” are among his interests. So is the data that influences, and often dictates, the decisions that are made.

“I dive into analytics probably more than the average player,” the veteran catcher explained during spring training. “I try to understand where teams are coming from, where agents are coming from, and where a player is going to come from in terms of analytics. It’s a piece of the puzzle that’s become increasing important.” Read the rest of this entry »

As offense dips down, it was bound to happen. Reid Detmers of the Angels threw the first solo no-hitter of the year last night, facing only 28 batters as he beguiled the Rays’ lineup for nine innings. But this no-hitter wasn’t filled with drama, or even short on offense. The Angels put up 12 runs, powered by a two-homer game from Mike Trout. One of baseball’s unique charms is that the two halves of the game are disconnected; you can have a tense chase of a no-hitter on one side and silly season on the other. Silly season? Well, let’s get right to it.

Top of the Early Innings

Detmers didn’t exactly roll out of bed dealing. After a first-pitch ball, he laid one in there, and Yandy Díaz tagged it for the hardest-hit ball that anyone on either team managed all game. Luckily, it was into the ground and straight at shortstop Andrew Velazquez. Wander Franco followed with another hard-hit grounder, and Harold Ramirez ended the inning with a sinking liner right at left fielder Brandon Marsh.
Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Marsh has an engaging personality and an innate ability to square up baseballs. He also has untapped potential. Rated as the top prospect in the Los Angeles Angels system prior to last season, the bearded, 24-year-old outfielder is building on a 2021 rookie campaign that saw him put up an 86 wRC+ over 70 games. Logging regular playing time in a dynamic L.A. lineup — this within an MLB-wide environment that is evoking memories of 1968’s “Year of the Pitcher” — Marsh is currently slashing .253/.318/.453 with four home runs and a 127 wRC+.

His offensive profile is more table-setter than bopper. Describing himself as a “gap-to-gap, doubles guy,” Marsh explained that while he’ll run into a ball from time to time, home runs are accidents. Line drives are his goal, which is precisely what the Angels want from him — and have wanted since taking him in the second round of the 2016 draft out of a Buford, Georgia high school.

“They’ve preached for me to keep my hands above the ball, and not be getting underneath and scooping it,” explained Marsh, who is listed at 6-foot-4, 215 pounds. “That type of deal. I’m not a strong, strong guy. I’m tall, but the barrel tends to lag sometimes, so I really need to stay through, and on top of the ball.”

Marsh went on to say that he views himself as a scrappy player whose role is to grind and get on base in front of “a lot of special players.” And while it’s true that he’s not in the same class as teammates such as Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, or Anthony Rendon, he nonetheless struck an excessively-humble tone when assessing his own talent level. Read the rest of this entry »

Jo Adell remains a work-in-progress. Drafted 10th overall out of a Louisville high school in 2017, the outfielder was rated the No. 1 prospect in the Los Angeles Angels system following his first full professional season, and he was just 21 years old when he made his major league debut in 2020 (he entered that season ranked fourth overall). The fast track hasn’t gone as smoothly as the Halos had hoped.

Adell scuffled during an extended COVID-year cameo, and last season he slashed a barely-scratching-the-surface-of-his-potential .246/.295/.408 following an August promotion. The current campaign has already featured a demotion. Unable to establish himself in a crowded Angels outfield, Adell — with a 95 wRC+ accompanying a ceiling that remains tantalizingly high — was sent down to Triple-A Salt Lake on Tuesday, with regular playing time a primary goal.

In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, Adell discussed the art and science of his mechanics and approach.

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David Laurila: Let’s start with a question I’ve begun some of my previous interviews with. Do you view hitting as more of an art, or more of a science?

Jo Adell: “A little of both. It’s an art in that everyone has their own way of doing it, their own style. There’s a little bit of science in the mix, with trying to figure out the best ways to attack certain guys. The approaches. So, I’d say art, physically — how you produce your swing, whether you’re a leg kick guy, a toe tap guy, or step forward guy — and then your game approach is the science.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Los Angeles Angels are off to a 13-7 start. A couple of the big reasons for that are not unexpected. Mike Trout, who hadn’t played in a regular-season game in 11 months, is off to a blazing start even by his robust standards, sporting an OPS north of 1.200 and already nearing the sort of WAR we expect a league-average player to post over six months. Shohei Ohtani isn’t torching the league to quite the same degree but he’s also on a 6-WAR pace when you combine his hitting and pitching. Still, in the past, the team has struggled even with two superstars at the top of their game. What’s working for Los Angeles now is truly unusual compared to recent years: getting lots of contributions from the other guys. And none of “the other guys” have stood taller so far than Taylor Ward.

I’m always one of the first to yell “April!” about small-sample-size stars, but Ward’s performance has still been stunning. His .381/.509/.762 line calculates out to a 269 wRC+, besting his teammate Trout and everyone else with at least 50 PA this season. What makes it even more impressive is that some of the numbers fueling that line are of the sort that are meaningful in a small sample.

There’s a bit of a fallacy with extreme data in small samples (if it has a name, I don’t know it). In baseball, when a .280 hitter hits .300, people accept it as normal, but when a .280 hitter hits .500, it is generally written off as a fluke. But while the “hitting .500” part is, the .280 hitter who is hitting .500 is more likely to have improved than the one posting .300. Read the rest of this entry »

During the past two years, we here at FanGraphs have spent a good bit of time staring into the abyss in contemplation. Specifically, we’ve wondered about a world without Mike Trout, or at least a world where he’s no longer the game’s top player. Who will inherit the mantle of this generation’s Mantle? What would our lowered expectations for Trout look like? What are the chances that in his age-30 season, he’s a bust? What would the playoff races look like without him?

Alas, we got an all-too-real demonstration of that last question just weeks after Dan Szymborski posed it last April, as Trout was limited to 36 games due to a right calf strain that he sustained on May 17. The strain, which occurred as he ran the bases on an inconsequential two-out popup, was supposed to sideline him for six to eight weeks, already the longest absence of his career. It turned out to be worse than expected; he never got comfortable enough in his recovery to begin a rehab assignment, and didn’t return to action before season’s end. Thankfully, he’s back now, and while he may not be better than ever, what his ridiculous stat line — .365/.476/.808 for a 270 wRC+, with all of those numbers major-league bests save for the batting average — presupposes is… maybe he is?

If Trout is on the precipice of age-related decline, it hasn’t come yet. After starting the year just 3-for-15, he’s put together a 10-game hitting streak, during which he’s putting up cheat-code numbers (.432/.523/.946). The streak went on ice for a few days when he was hit on the left hand by an 81 mph slider from the Rangers’ Spencer Patton on April 17; I don’t know about you, but I can’t watch the clip without the urge to yell, “Move, Mike!” when he reflexively pulls his hands down towards his waist and puts them in harm’s way. Thankfully, x-rays were negative, and while he missed three games, he’s kicked things up a notch since returning, with multi-hit efforts in four of his last six games, and seven of the 11 hits within going for extra bases. Read the rest of this entry »

Shohei Ohtani was up to some Tungsten Arm O’Doyle antics last night. He batted twice before throwing his first pitch of the game, something no one had accomplished in the recorded history of baseball. He bunted for a hit in the sixth inning while throwing a perfect game, almost assuredly the first time any pitcher has done that. That’s par for the course for Ohtani.

If you spend too long thinking about his record-breaking unicorn status, though, you might miss this fact: Ohtani has never looked better on the mound. Last year, he was a hitter first and a pitcher second; his 3.18 ERA over 130 innings was certainly impressive, but it wasn’t the equal of his .257/.372/.592 batting line and 46 home runs. This year, he’s off to a slower start with the bat — not a poor start, to be sure, but not the equal of last season. On the mound, though, he’s looking better and better. If 2021 was the year of Ohtani (hitter-first), 2022 might be the year of Ohtani (pitcher-first), with last night’s brush with perfection signaling his arrival. Read the rest of this entry »

When the Angels signed Michael Lorenzen this offseason, it was hard to say what to expect from him. A longtime member of the Reds’ bullpen for nearly his entire major league career, he entered his first time through free agency looking for an opportunity to start again; making that jump to the rotation came with all sorts of uncertainty. But after just two starts for his hometown team, the early returns have been promising.

The former 38th overall pick began his career as a member of the Reds’ rotation, making 21 starts during his rookie season back in 2015 but posting a 5.45 ERA and a 5.48 FIP and getting relegated to the bullpen by the end of the year. He enjoyed a bit of success in shorter outings the next year and wound up in that role for the rest of his time in Cincinnati. At various points during his time there, Lorenzen regularly expressed a desire to return to the rotation, but spring injuries often played a role in pushing him back to the bullpen. In 2016, it was a sprained ligament in his elbow; in ‘18, a shoulder injury. He was on track to join the rotation last spring until another shoulder injury derailed that plan again.

The fact that Lorenzen made it through spring training without an injury and actually made a start this season has to be seen as an accomplishment. Not only that, but his first outing against the Marlins was outstanding: two hits over six innings and a single run that scored on a Jesús Sánchez solo home run. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out seven. His next start was a much stiffer challenge against the Astros in Houston, where he lasted into the fourth inning but was done in by a lapse in command, issuing a walk and hit by pitch both with the bases loaded. He wound up allowing four runs on four hits and two walks in 3.1 innings of work, striking out two.

While the start in Houston didn’t go as well as his first, Lorenzen has shown some interesting changes to his pitch arsenal that could indicate some more success on the horizon. In his postgame comments after his Angels debut, he discussed his pitch profile:

“I worked really hard this offseason to get my stuff where it needs to be. It’s a lot more fun in the rotation. I’m able to use everything and set guys up certain ways for the next time through. It’s just more fun to do that instead of being limited. I have too many pitches to be limited in the bullpen, so I was just able to take advantage of my pitch profile.”

Even as a reliever, Lorenzen continued to use a full, six-pitch repertoire. He leaned on his four-seam fastball and cutter for the most part, but also sprinkled in a sinker, changeup, slider, and curveball. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I wrote about the intentional walk heard ‘round the world. It was mostly reflex, really. When someone issues a strange intentional walk, I can’t help but dig through the numbers. But this one, I was quite sure from the start, was bad. The math was just a way of rubbernecking, staring at a baseball accident from across the highway and saying “Wow, I wonder how that happened?”

But in doing so, I didn’t engage Joe Maddon on his weird, hipster-glass-wearing turf. Maddon didn’t say he was trying to minimize run expectancy (though he should have been). He didn’t say he was trying to maximize his team’s chances of winning the game (though he should have been). He said he was trying to “avoid the big blow,” or prevent a big inning in other words.

Bad news, Joe! Using the same simulation I used to estimate run and win expectations, I can work out the chances of a “big blow” for some arbitrary definition of big. Take my initial simulation. I estimated that the Rangers stood to score roughly 1.75 more runs in the inning when Corey Seager came to the plate, before any intentional walk shenanigans. We aren’t limited to looking at that in terms of average runs, though. It can also be expressed as some likelihood of scoring zero runs, one run, two runs, etc:

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