In a season that had already seen strikeout rates and totals reach unprecedented highs, Justin Verlander helped himself to not one but two impressive, K-related milestones on Saturday night against the Angels in Anaheim. With his fourth-inning strikeout of Kole Calhoun, he became the 18th pitcher to reach 3,000 for his career, and the second this season after CC Sabathia. Two innings later, he whiffed Calhoun again for his 300th (and final) strikeout of the season. The two milestones — which had been paired in a single game once before, by the Diamondbacks’ Randy Johnson on September 10, 2000 against the Marlins — added a couple more bullet points to his case for a second AL Cy Young award, but they also served to remind us what a silly season it’s been for swings and misses.

After leading the AL for the fifth time last year with a career-high 290 strikeouts, Verlander began this season 294 short of 3,000, a distance that suggested that the 36-year-old righty would need until early in the 2020 season to reach the milestone. That still appeared to be the case when I checked in on him on May 1, in the context of Sabathia joining the 3,000 club; on June 24, when I wrote about Verlander dominating despite so many home runs surrendered; and on August 16, when I checked in on the progress of several stars who had enhanced their Hall of Fame cases this year. At that last juncture, Verlander was averaging 12.0 strikeouts per nine and needed 77 to reach 3,000. Figuring six innings and thus eight strikeouts per start, times eight starts — either actual or their equivalent via shorter late-season outings as the playoffs approached — my back-of-the-envelope math suggested he’d fall short.

The night that last piece was published, Verlander whiffed 11 A’s in seven innings, though he wound up on the losing end of a 3-2 game. It was his sixth straight game with at least 10 strikeouts, already a personal best, and he pushed the streak to seven games with an 11-strikeout complete game against Detroit on August 21 — yet another loss, however, as the two hits he surrendered to the Tigers, both solo homers, were enough to topple him. Two starts later, he punched out 14 Blue Jays while notching his third career no-hitter, and despite generally drawing down his pitch counts over his last four starts — 106 pitches on September 12 versus the A’s, 87 on September 17 versus the Rangers, 92 on September 22 against the Angels, and then just 80 on Saturday night — he had two more starts with double-digit K’s and totaled 36 over his final 23 innings. Where my estimate from mid-August to the end of the season was for 48 innings and 64 strikeouts, he instead threw 60.1 innings with 83 strikeouts. His rate per plate appearance rose from 34.5% (with a 5.4% walk rate) prior to August 16, to 38.7% (with a 3.7% walk rate) from that point onward. While the Tigers and Rangers both finished among the majors’ top five in batter strikeout rates, the A’s and Angels were in the bottom seven, so it’s not like Verlander had a particular advantage down the stretch. His was an impressive rally. Read the rest of this entry »

When ESPN’s Buster Olney reported on Friday that Yankees right-hander Domingo Germán will not pitch again this year, either in the regular season or the postseason, in the wake of a reported violation of the Joint MLB-MLBPA Domestic Violence Policy and a likely suspension, it was a instance of the league and the players’ union lucking into the right outcome. While players suspended for violating the Joint Drug Agreement by taking performance-enhancing drugs have been ineligible to participate in that year’s postseason since 2014, that’s not the case for those suspended under the DV policy introduced in August 2015. Not only does that make for a jarring incongruity given the relative severity of those transgressions, allowing recently suspended players to participate in the playoffs can lead to unsavory behavior on the part of teams, as we’ve seen multiple times since the policy was introduced. It’s time for the players and the league to close this loophole.

Germán was placed on administrative leave on Thursday in connection with an incident that reportedly took place at the pitcher’s residence late Monday or early Tuesday, after the pitcher and his girlfriend appeared at CC Sabathia’s charity gala. The 27-year-old righty, who in his first full major league season has emerged as a viable rotation cog, had pitched in relief of Sabathia on Wednesday night in preparation for a more flexible role come the postseason. The announcement of his placement on leave dimmed some of the luster of the Yankees’ victory over the Angels later that night, which not only marked their 100th win but clinched their first AL East title since 2012.

No police report was filed in connection with the incident at Germán’s residence, and no charges were filed. The incident was reported directly to the league, which, according to The Athletic’s Lindsey Adler, conducted a preliminary investigation on Tuesday and Wednesday, interviewing people around the team. While Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he heard “whispers” of an investigation on Wednesday, the team was not informed until Thursday morning that the pitcher had been placed on administrative leave. Via Adler:

“I learned on the drive in that he was going on administrative leave,” Boone said Thursday afternoon. “Heard some of the whispers and whatnot, but this is a Major League Baseball investigation and issue. We’re just trying to be as cooperative as we can while this goes on.”

A player can be placed on administrative leave for up to seven days, though that period can be extended; during that time, he is paid but not allowed to have any contact with his team. By inference, the mere placement of a player on leave means that the league and the union agree that the allegation in question is substantive — that there is enough evidence to merit preventing him from playing. As Adler noted, “[S]ources told The Athletic the union had the option to appeal his immediate placement on administrative leave but did not take the opportunity to do so.”

Not every player suspended under the policy was placed on leave beforehand, but it is worth noting that the only two of the 14 players investigated who were not suspended, Yasiel Puig and Miguel Sanó, did not require any leave, as the allegations pertained to incidents that took place in the offseason. Neither was ultimately disciplined due to insufficient evidence that they violated the policy. Read the rest of this entry »

We probably don’t need to re-litigate the trade that sent Gerrit Cole from the Pirates to the Astros two years ahead of free agency. This post isn’t about what the Astros did to transform Cole or what the Pirates failed to do. This post is, to a certain extent, about who Gerrit Cole was, and who he is now, but it is less about how he’s changed and more about how he’s the same.

Every pitcher makes adjustments to try and get better and be more effective at getting hitters out. Some work better than others. Pitchers make these changes while staying in the same organization or while jumping to a different team. Injuries can sometimes derail development, as can trying strategies that just don’t work out. We know Cole wasn’t great with the Pirates in 2016 and 2017, and he’s been great with the Astros in 2018 and 2019. Hopefully this post serves as a reminder of how great Cole was in 2015 and how what he’s doing now is meeting incredibly lofty expectations his performance set for himself five seasons ago.

In 2015, Cole put up a 2.66 FIP, a 2.60 ERA, and 5.1 WAR, ranked 10th among all pitchers and first among pitchers 25 years old and younger, beating out Madison Bumgarner, Sonny Gray, Shelby Miller, and Carlos Martinez. Cole was just 24 years old at the time. To find some age-based comparisons, I looked at 24-year-old starters since 1990 within half a win of Cole. Read the rest of this entry »

With just over a week to go in the regular season, Justin Verlander and Gerrit Cole are running neck and neck as favorites for the American League Cy Young award. Verlander leads the league in innings (212) and ERA (2.50). Cole has the lead in strikeouts with 302 with Verlander 19 behind. Even after accounting for Verlander’s 34 homers, his 3.28 FIP is still one of the best marks in the league. On Cole’s side are the strikeouts, a league-leading 2.78 FIP and a 6.7 WAR half a win clear of Verlander. Several other pitchers, like Charlie Morton and Lance Lynn, boast strong resumes, and with five slots on voters’ ballots, many pitchers will receive down-ballot consideration worthy of discussion.

While awards voting is a mostly objective process, when trying to differentiate between a group of very good pitchers, personal preferences are likely to play into the selections. When voters rely on particular stats, be it FIP, ERA, or some other metric, they are making decisions about the importance of defense, park, opponent, and how much talent a big league pitcher is expected to exhibit when it comes to contact quality. Before we get to all of those issues, let’s identify the candidates. There’s a fairly clear top seven among AL starting pitchers (Liam Hendriks might deserve some consideration as well) with Eduardo Rodriguez also included due to his rank based on Baseball-Reference’s WAR.

Here are the eight pitchers under consideration, with some traditional and more advanced statistics:

A look above shows Gerrit Cole leading in the more advanced statistics, with Verlander gaining the nod from traditional metrics, and Lance Lynn and Charlie Morton sort of splitting the difference between the two Astros. Shane Bieber and Lucas Giolito are a bit behind, with Giolito unable to add anything to his file after being shut down for the season. Mike Minor’s case is made by his low ERA combined with his difficult park, as his strikeouts and walks lag behind the other candidates. Eduardo Rodriguez is the poor man’s version of Minor.

If we looked at FanGraphs WAR, we’d see Cole as the leader due to his incredible strikeout rate and ability to limit homers, at least somewhat. Though he has a 20-inning deficit compared to Verlander, the strikeouts and homers make enough of a difference for Cole to take the day. Verlander and Lynn are in a dead heat when it comes to WAR, with the huge difference in home runs balancing Verlander’s lead in strikeouts and walks and Lynn’s more difficult park in which to keep balls in the field of play. Comparing Lynn to Morton, we see Morton with the homer advantage, but the innings deficit, combined with Tampa Bay being a hard park to homer in, gives Lynn the edge. Read the rest of this entry »

Quick: Who are the best five hitters in baseball this year? Take a quick gander at the leaderboards, if you’d like, before answering. There’s the WAR leaderboard:

That’s not what you want, though, because defense gets involved there. How about a wRC+ leaderboard instead? That should keep the Xander Bogaerts’s and Marcus Semien’s of the world from intruding on our hitting party:

Trout, Yelich, Bregman, Bellinger, and Rendon. That’s a pretty solid five. It’s also missing an obvious name: Yordan Alvarez, quite possibly the best hitter in baseball this year.

Why isn’t Alvarez on the list? It comes down to the tyranny of the qualified hitter. Setting a plate appearance minimum is a reasonable idea: without it, the best wRC+ this year would belong to Oliver Drake, who singled in his only plate appearance. No one wants that, except perhaps Oliver Drake.

That doesn’t mean that it’s always right to ignore everyone who falls short of the qualification minimum, though. Alvarez has 320 plate appearances this year, a far cry from Drake territory. Because he wasn’t called up until June, he won’t qualify for the batting title this year, but that shouldn’t distract you from the fact that he’s one of the best hitters in the major leagues, full stop. Read the rest of this entry »

In Steph Curry’s junior season, his Davidson Wildcats played a non-conference game against Loyola Maryland. Curry led the nation in scoring at the time, and as expected, Davidson rolled that night. But Curry himself didn’t score a point. Loyola’s coach, Jimmy Patsos, instructed his players to double-team Curry up and down the court. So, Curry stood in the corner with two Greyhounds next to him as his teammates played 4-on-3 and won by 30.

After the game, Patsos more or less copped to the farce. Defending his tactics, he asked: “Anybody else ever hold him scoreless? I’m a history major. [Are people] going to remember that we held him scoreless or we lost by 30?”

Whether all that makes Patsos infamous, cynical, or pathetic is up to your interpretation. Regardless, he’s right about one thing: you can generate attention in defeat, even humiliating defeat, so long as you lose in notable fashion.

It’s a lesson the Seattle Mariners reinforced over the weekend. On the surface, Sunday’s matchup between Seattle and Houston looked as lopsided on paper as a major league game can. The Astros are perhaps baseball’s best team; the Mariners may lose 100 games. Cy Young contender Gerrit Cole was on the mound for Houston, opposed by former Cy Young winner but current-6.00-ERA-holder Félix Hernández. The Astros had already defeated Seattle 15 times in 16 tries. Vegas handicappers set one of the highest lines I can ever remember seeing for a major league contest.

This being baseball, anything can happen on any given day, and as it turned out, 35,000 Houstonians saw a pretty spectacular version of “anything:” the most lopsided ballgame in recent memory. Read the rest of this entry »

September call-ups, both high-profile and totally innocuous, have been trickling in over the transaction wire for the last several days. As always, there are some who will have real impact on the playoff race and some who are interesting for the purposes of player evaluation, like your usual spare lefty reliever and catcher (by far the most common types of September additions). Some teams with no new names at all. Below I’ve compiled notes on every player brought up by an American League team since the start of the month, no matter how inconsequential; I’ve slipped some rehabbers and August 31 acquisitions in here, too. It’s a primer for you to get (re)acquainted with players who might impact the playoff race or the seasons to come. (The National League’s complement can be found here.)

Contenders’ Reinforcements

Houston Astros– OF Kyle Tucker, C Garrett Stubbs, RHP Josh James, RHP Jose Urquidy

Kiley and I have Tucker projected as an above-average regular, ranked 15th overall among prospects in baseball. I have no idea what kind of playing time he might get this month. Stubbs (24th in the org) has begun playing a little bit of second base and outfield. A part time, multi-positional role might help keep his tiny frame from breaking down, and enable Houston to get his long-performing bat in the lineup, as well as create flexibility on other parts of the roster.

James was 94-97 in rehab outings before he returned, then reached 99 on Monday. Urquidy projects as a strike-throwing fifth starter.

New York Yankees– OF Clint Frazier, RHP Jonathan Loaisiga, RHP Ryan Dull, RHP Chance Adams, LHP Tyler Lyons, INF Brenny Escanio (prospect)

I think it’s likely Frazier, who many scouts/teams continue to think has everyday ability, gets traded this offseason, both because he’s part of a crowded outfield/DH mix and because he and the org don’t seem to be a great fit. Read the rest of this entry »

In the second half of the season, Justin Verlander has been the best pitcher in baseball. On the heels of a no-hitter over the weekend, Verlander lowered his second-half FIP to a major league-leading 1.91 and his ERA to an AL-leading 1.76, and raised his WAR to 3.2, more than half a win better than second-place Jack Flaherty. On the season, it’s less clear whether Verlander has been the game’s best pitcher. His 2.56 ERA does lead the AL, but his 3.41 FIP is seventh in the league, and even with his 193 innings tops in the game, he’s still nearly a full win behind Lance Lynn in WAR, with Gerrit Cole and Charlie Morton ahead of Verlander’s 5.2 figure as well.

The reason Verlander has performed relatively poorly — even if he’s only the fourth-best pitcher in the AL, he’s having a great season — is due to all of the home runs he has given up. Only Mike Leake and Matthew Boyd have allowed more than the 33 homers offered up by the 36-year-old righty. In some ways, Verlander’s home run troubles are just an extension of the 2018 season. Home runs have gone up from 1.16 per nine innings last year to 1.45 this year; Verlander gave up 1.18 homers per nine innings last year and has given up 1.54 this season. Even if Verlander’s increase was exactly in line with the rest of baseball’s, we’d only be talking about a difference of two home runs, and a 3.28 FIP instead of the 3.41 he currently holds. But that’s still a pretty big difference from his 2.69 ERA, and requires some explanation.

The simple answer behind all of Justin Verlander’s homers is that he’s a fly ball pitcher who throws pitches more prone to homers than most pitchers. A year ago, it might have been that Verlander was a bit unlucky with the long ball. Based on Statcast’s numbers, Verlander’s xwOBA on homers last year was 1.042, which was about 300 points below league average, so he might have had his share of bad luck in that regard. This season, the xwOBA on Verlander homers is 1.317, right in line with the rest of the majors. The same is true when we drop the standards to batted balls with an expected ISO of at least .200. Verlander’s xwOBA on those 97 batted balls was .876 compared to a major league-wide .857, and the resulting wOBA for Verlander was .921 compared to .902 for the rest of the sport. Twenty-five percent of those balls ended up out of the ballpark for the league compared to 31% for Verlander, which isn’t a huge difference. Based on the quality of the contact, Verlander has absolutely earned his home run totals this season. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m not breaking any news in saying that Alex Bregman is having a great year. He’s batting an otherworldly .295/.416/.570, good for a 162 wRC+, while walking more than he strikes out and playing his usual excellent defense at third base. He’s fifth in baseball in WAR, and only Mike Trout’s constant unrelenting excellence prevents Bregman from being the presumptive AL MVP.

I could talk about all of that, but that would be boring. Do you really want to hear that Alex Bregman is good? If that’s what you’re here for — he’s good! He’s great! Boring. If that’s what you’re after, go browse his player page — it won’t disappoint. I want to tackle something slightly different today.

This year, it wouldn’t be a stretch to call Bregman a power hitter. His .278 ISO is 14th-best in baseball, sandwiched between Kyle Schwarber and Freddie Freeman, and his 33 home runs are both a career-best and a top-20 mark in baseball. Heck, he was in the Home Run Derby, and nothing says power hitter like baseball’s annual celebration of dingers. He hit 31 home runs last year, too — this isn’t a purely 2019 concern. Here’s my hot take: Bregman still isn’t a power hitter — and if he unlocks that, there’s a new level of stardom available to him. Read the rest of this entry »

Entering Sunday’s games, 30 pitchers since 1908 had thrown multiple no-hitters. The list is an impressive one, including names like Warren Spahn, Max Scherzer, Walter Johnson, and Randy Johnson. There are also some less exciting names on the list with Homer Bailey, Mike Fiers, and Jake Arrieta all accomplishing the same feat in recent seasons. Of those 30 players with at least two no-hitters since 1908, 27 of the 30 had thrown exactly two such games, including Justin Verlander. After a 14-strikeout, one-walk no-hitter on Sunday, Verlander joins Bob Feller, Cy Young, and Larry Corcoran in all of baseball history three no-hitters, sitting behind only Sandy Koufax (4) and Nolan Ryan (7).

All no-hitters are impressive, as navigating an entire game without allowing a hit is a feat unto itself and generally comes with an excellent defensive performance combined with a great outing from the pitcher. Verlander’s no-hitter is one of the most impressive in recent history due to how little he relied on his teammates to complete the task. Only seven times before has a pitcher put up more than Verlander’s 14 strikeouts in a no-hitter. Scherzer put up 17 in his October 2015 no-hitter and Ryan did the same back in 1973. Ryan also struck out 16 and 15 in other no-hitters, with Clayton Kershaw getting 15 Ks in 2014 while Warren Spahn and Don Wilson also reached 15 strikeouts in their performances. Verlander’s 14 matches four others including Ryan, Koufax, Matt Cain, and Nap Rucker back in 1908. Cain, Koufax, and Rucker did not walk any batters, and the only other pitchers with at least 14 strikeouts and one walk or none were Scherzer and Kershaw. Read the rest of this entry »