When Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association signed a new Collective Bargaining Agreement this offseason, it included some interesting provisions designed to combat service time manipulation. Top prospects who finish first or second in Rookie of the Year voting will automatically gain a full year of service time regardless of when they’re called up, and teams that promote top prospects early enough for them to gain a full year of service will be eligible to earn extra draft picks if those players go on to finish in the top three in Rookie of the Year voting or the top five in MVP or Cy Young voting. The goal was to incentivize teams to call up their best young players when they’re ready, rather than keeping them in the minor leagues to gain an extra year of team control.

So far, the rule changes seem to have had their intended effect: three of our top five preseason prospects, and 11 of our top 50, earned an Opening Day roster spot out of spring training. The three prospects in the top five all play for American League teams, and with many others putting together impressive performances in the majors, the competition in the junior circuit for the Rookie of the Year award is quite compelling. Below is a table of the best rookie performers in the AL through June 15:

Jeremy Peña (ranked 30th on our preseason Top 100) has raced out ahead of the three top prospects referenced above to accumulate 2.5 WAR in just 54 games. That mark is the second highest among AL shortstops, and is the result of his phenomenal up-the-middle defense and his prowess at the plate. He’s slashed .277/.333/.471 (133 wRC+) so far this year with a solid if aggressive approach and some good power. The thump is a recent development after Peña filled out last year. He’s already blasted nine home runs and his peripherals support a profile that could reach 20 homers by the end of the season; his max exit velocity and barrel rate both sit above league average, with only his hard hit rate falling below. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday, the Astros easily handled the Rangers. They won, 9–2, with Luis Garcia’s strong start backed by a typically robust offensive performance. The Astros are very good. The Rangers are significantly worse. There are baseball games like this every day, multiple of them even. But this game stands alone, for one singular feat.

Er, well, dual feat. In the second inning, Garcia was simply too much for the Rangers. He faced Nathaniel Lowe, Ezequiel Duran, and Brad Miller, and wasted no time in setting them down:

LUIS GARCIA IS IMMACULATE. pic.twitter.com/9YwSW06uIp

— Houston Astros (@astros) June 15, 2022

That was the 107th immaculate inning — nine pitches, three strikeouts — in baseball history. It wasn’t the most recent one for long, however. In the seventh, Phil Maton came on in relief of Garcia and got right down to business. He faced Nathaniel Lowe, Ezequiel Duran, and Brad Miller, and wasted no time in setting them down:

SAME GAME. SAME BATTERS.

PHIL MATON IS IMMACULATE. pic.twitter.com/xg53FGAJ02

— Houston Astros (@astros) June 15, 2022

Hey, that was really convenient! I got to use the exact same sentence again, because Maton exactly repeated Garcia’s feat; he tore through the three Rangers in only nine pitches for the 108th immaculate inning in history. It was, as you’d expect, the first time the same team has accomplished the feat twice in one game, as well as the first time it’s happened twice on the same day, to give you an idea of how out of the ordinary this was.

You didn’t need FanGraphs to tell you that was remarkable, though. Everyone else already has. Instead, I thought I’d take a look at perfect strikeouts — three pitches, one strikeout, no beating around the bush — and see whether this game still stands out if we remove the “innings” part of immaculate innings.

Garcia had those three perfect strikeouts in the second inning, but he actually managed another one in the game. It was, in fact, the next batter he faced: Leody Taveras went down on consecutive pitches before Marcus Semien took a first-pitch ball to end Garcia’s streak. Four three-pitch strikeouts in a game sounds quite impressive, but it’s not even the most in a game this year. Zach Eflin reeled off six perfect strikeouts in his start on May 22. Six other players have notched five such strikeouts in a game, including Garcia himself on April 22.

Extending our lens backwards in time to 2007, the earliest year in the pitch-by-pitch database I used, you’ll be unsurprised to learn that Max Scherzer holds the single-game record. On May 11, 2016, he tied a far more visible record with 20 strikeouts in a nine-inning game. He also struck out nine batters on exactly three pitches. Scherzer might just have a knack for this; he also notched two separate games with seven three-pitch strikeouts (May 26, 2017 and September 20, 2018).

There have been 11 games since 2007 where a pitcher recorded seven or more three-pitch strikeouts. No one else has more than one. Scherzer, it turns out, is the master of the efficient strikeout. Other good pitchers have approached those heights, but only rarely. Here are those 11 games:

That’s neat, but focusing on that fact highlights only Garcia, and not particularly well at that. If we’re focusing on team perfect strikeouts, the Astros mustered seven; Garcia’s four and Maton’s three were the only ones of the game. That’s part of a three-way tie for most in a single game this year. The Rays notched seven on April 14, and the Astros did it again on April 24. If you’ll recall from above, that’s the game where Garcia had five perfect strikeouts. He’s the standard-bearer for the feat this year.

Zoom out, and things get Rays-y. On August 17, 2019, they struck out ten batters on three pitches apiece, the only team (!) to eclipse Scherzer’s nine-strikeout effort. Houston pitchers certainly looked dominant yesterday, but they needed an entire extra immaculate inning to match the standard Tampa set.

Are you less interested in the specific game and more interested in Garcia’s three-pitch-strikeout prowess? He has 17 of them on the year, which certainly sounds impressive, but only places him in a tie for seventh among pitchers in 2022. Shane McClanahan is first, with a whopping 23. Nestor Cortes, of all people, has 18. Scherzer has 15, and he hasn’t pitched in a month. Garcia is certainly one of the best pitchers in baseball when it comes to going right after the batter and setting them down, but he’s not the best in the business.

Did I succeed in exhausting everyone’s interest in three-pitch strikeouts? Who knows! I find them quite interesting, but then, I find a lot of things about baseball quite interesting. I found yesterday’s Astros feat amazing, but giving it a little more context just makes Scherzer’s feats stand out even more. The three-pitch strikeout is the ultimate expression of pitcher dominance — no waste, just three straight strikes, next please — and it stands to reason that the marquee strikeout pitcher of our generation is also the marquee three-pitch-strikeout pitcher of our generation.

FanGraphs readers are a smart bunch. Though the comments can sometimes unravel into a series of shouting matches, the usual atmosphere is encouraging and collegial. For example, here’s a thought-provoking question I received a few weeks ago and my reply to it:

This is from an article I wrote about Framber Valdez and how he was on pace to shatter his own historic groundball-to-fly ball ratio. A five-man infield in any other circumstance would be out of the question, but consider just how many grounders Valdez generates. Among starters with a minimum of 200 innings pitched since 2020, he’s first in groundball rate (66.7%) by a wide, wide margin. With so few balls heading towards the outfield, does it make sense to reinforce the infield instead? It’s an intriguing inquiry, one that I promised would receive an answer. So here goes! Read the rest of this entry »

Alex Bregman has a reputation for being a studious hitter. Moreover, he has a well-earned reputation for being a productive hitter. The 28-year-old Houston Astros third baseman boasts a .371 wOBA and a 139 wRC+ in just over 3,000 career plate appearances. At his best, he’s been a beast; in 2019, he slugged 41 home runs and slashed a robust .296/.423/.592.

Recent seasons have seen Bregman perform below his pre-pandemic standards, but even with the downturn he’s been putting up solid numbers. His wRC+ since the start of the 2020 season is equal to this year’s 117. Still in his prime from an age standpoint, he remains a feared hitter in the middle of the Houston lineup.

Bregman talked hitting when the Astros visited Fenway Park in mid-May.

——-

David Laurila: How would you describe your approach to hitting?

Alex Bregman: “The most important thing is knowing what kind of hitter you are [and] knowing what’s going to make you successful. I think that swinging at pitches you can do damage with is extremely important. I think that taking pitches that you can’t do damage with is extremely important. In my best years, I’ve swung the least, while in my worst years I’ve swung the most. I’ve put balls in play that I shouldn’t be putting in play, because they weren’t pitches that I can do damage on.”

Laurila: How can a hitter go about controlling that? A swing decision is something that happens in a blink of an eye.

Bregman: “Good hitters can recognize when pitches are coming into that zone. They can do that early and be able to make a decision, ‘yes or no,’ pretty quickly.”

Laurila: Does a hitter’s hot zone ever change? Read the rest of this entry »

I have something of an annual tradition here at FanGraphs. Once a year, give or take, I write about how Yordan Alvarez is underrated. I can’t help it; he continues to be one of the very few best hitters in baseball, and he continues to get less credit than he deserves. Now, though, he doesn’t need credit, because he has cash — $115 million worth, to be precise — as he and the Astros agreed to a contract extension that will keep him in Houston through 2028:

Slugger Yordan Álvarez and the Houston Astros are in agreement on a six-year, $115 million contract extension, sources familiar with the deal tell ESPN. Contract kicks in next season. Biggest contract ever for a DH and $26M/year for 3 FA years. And Astros lock up a great hitter.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 3, 2022

Even though I just mentioned what an excellent hitter Alvarez is, it bears repeating. This year, he’s hitting a scorching .295/.391/.624, good for a 192 wRC+, second in baseball. He’s doing it without a ludicrous BABIP; in fact, his .280 mark looks likely to increase as the season goes on. That makes his offensive production all the more remarkable; it’s easy to post a hot batting line if you’re BABIP’ing .400, but Alvarez does it the old-fashioned way, with walks and extra-base hits.

How does Alvarez get to that massive production? By obliterating the baseball consistently. He’s barreled up a whopping 19.1% of his batted balls this year. That’s Stantonian power, or even a bit better; Stanton checks in at 17.2% since the start of the 2015 season, for example. Since Alvarez came up in 2019, he’s sixth in baseball in barrel rate (among hitters with at least one season qualifying for the batting title), and the guys in front of him are a who’s who of enormous power hitters:

This list does a good job of explaining the possible highs and lows of Alvarez’s production, but it leaves something out. One way to rack up barrels is to be powerful and almost exclusively hit fly balls. Sanó, Gallo, and Sánchez get to theirs that way. So, too, does Trout. He’s become increasingly fly ball-heavy in recent years in an attempt to tap into his power.
Read the rest of this entry »

This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

Alec Burleson, RF, St. Louis Cardinals
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Memphis Age: 23 Org Rank: TBD FV: 40+
Weekend Line: 9-for-13, 3 2B, HR

Notes
As the Cardinals are apt to do with their prospects, they pushed Burleson, a former two-way player, to the upper levels very quickly, having him spend most of his first full season at Double-A before a late-season promotion to Memphis, where he began 2022. He has had virtually no issues, slashing .282/.337/.486 so far as a pro, with a whopping .321/.367/.591 line at Triple-A this year. Burleson has above-average raw power and is hitting the ball hard despite utilizing a simple swing, one that becomes even simpler when he has two strikes. He is adept at hitting up-and-in fastballs, though he sometimes strangely inside-outs them to left field, and he also tends to take pitches down and away from him the opposite way, with enough strength to do extra-base damage in that direction.

Burleson is a pretty aggressive hitter whose chase rates have historically been in the 37-40% range, which would put him among the top 25 or so swing-happiest qualified big league hitters. It’s a somewhat scary underlying data point for a guy who doesn’t bring a lot to the table on defense, as Burleson is a tentative corner outfielder with a surprisingly average arm for a former college pitcher. Burleson has absolutely put himself in the short-term big league conversation with his upper-level performance, but there’s still bust risk here and he’s likely a corner platoon bat who’ll compete with Lars Nootbaar (who has better plate discipline, but a swing less optimized for power) for plate appearances against righties once Corey Dickerson’s one-year deal is up. Read the rest of this entry »

Sergio Romo moved past Walter Johnson on the all-time pitching appearances list a few days ago. Now in his fifteenth season, and his first with the Seattle Mariners, the 39-year-old right-hander has taken the mound 804 times, a number that only 49 others have reached. Also in front of Tyler Clippard following yesterday’s outing in Boston, Romo was at 798 games to begin the campaign.

I asked the bearded-and-tattooed reliever when he started becoming aware of his place in history.

“This season, really,” Romo told me on Friday. “Earlier in my career, it had been more of a blur. But coming into this year, it was kind of, ‘Hey, man…’ My wife, too. She was aware of it. She was, ‘You’re two away from 800,’ so I started paying attention.”

Asked for his thoughts on having just passed a legendary Hall of Famer, Romo responded with a smiling, “Take that, Walter!”

Romo knows his history. “The Big Train” pitched long before he was alive — from 1907 through 1927 — but his legacy is no mystery.

“He was an infamous flame-thrower, and a guy who commanded a lot of respect,” said Romo. “He pitched a lot of innings, and he did it throwing gas. I actually play with Walter Johnson every now and again in MLB: The Show, The’ve got a lot of greats in that game. Hank Aaron, Willie McCovey… a lot of those guys.”

Nolan Ryan pitched in 807 games on his way to immortality.R omo will soon pass “The Ryan Express” on the all-time appearances, as well. I asked the owner of 137 saves, and a career 3.09 ERA, what it feels like — obvious caveats aside — to be in such company. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 975

On this episode, we chat about the AL West-leading Astros before getting help from an astrophysicist as we try to understand why the baseball continues to act so strangely.

• To start the show, David Laurila welcomes Julia Morales, reporter for AT&T SportsNet Southwest and the Houston Astros. Morales has been covering the team for a decade and shares what it was like to go through the lean years as well as the championship run, and how the rise of analytics has changed her job as a broadcaster. We also hear about going inside the Green Monster and stories involving Jose Altuve, Zack Greinke, Jeremy Peña, A.J. Hinch, Dusty Baker, and more. [2:44]
• After that, Dan Szymborski and Ben Clemens welcome Dr. Meredith Wills, who first appeared on episode 909, back to the show. Dr. Wills has continued her research into what is going on with the baseball and shares her findings on what she is calling an “unforced error.” We learn how humidors can affect baseballs differently — with the help of a leftover food analogy — and what could be causing dents in the ball. Finally, Ben and Dan ask the good doctor what she would do to fix the league’s equipment issues if she were given total control. [34:47]

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When a batter steps up to the plate against Framber Valdez, there are a couple things that can happen. The first (and most embarrassing) outcome is a strikeout. It doesn’t happen too frequently, thankfully – Valdez’s current strikeout rate of 18.9% is on the low side – but still, it hurts to have stood there without positively impacting the game whatsoever. How about a walk to ease the pain? Valdez isn’t exactly a control artist, and his current walk rate of 10.1% is on the high end. A free trip to first makes for a satisfied hitter – no further explanation needed. But a potentially greater outcome is a ball in play, which constitute 69.2% of Valdez’s allowed outcomes. That’s a lot of contact! Balls in play include outs, certainly, but also the doubles, triples, and home runs that galvanize batters and fans alike. No other outcome is as unpredictable yet rewarding.

Based on this, you might think hitters enjoy teeing off against Valdez. There’s one problem, though. So far this season, their collective groundball rate against him is a whopping 69.0%. Their collective fly ball rate, meanwhile, is a mere 6.9%. Not that a grounder can’t become a hit, but without an element of luck, it’s a single at best. And when hitters have attempted to circumvent that issue by swinging for the fences… well, they haven’t succeeded. Valdez has allowed just eight fly balls this season. It’s his world they’re living in. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

———

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 »