Around this time last year, Ken Giles fell prey to the right hook… of Ken Giles.

On May 1, while with the Astros, Giles came into a scoreless game against the Yankees. After an Aaron Judge single, Didi Gregorius double, Giancarlo Stanton strikeout, Gary Sanchez homer, and an Aaron Hicks single, Giles exited the game, which, by this point, was no longer scoreless. The Yankees had mounted a four-run lead, and Giles had only recorded a single out. One might say that, as Giles left the field, he was not happy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Friend, you’re a baseball fan. You don’t need me to tell you that the Astros are great, because you already know it. You probably know they’re playing .650 baseball so far this year. If you look at their run differential, you might notice that their Pythagorean record is actually better than their record — they “should” have one more win based on their run differential. Heck, if you look at BaseRuns standings, which look at underlying production rather than runs, they “should” have three more wins. Their offensive and defensive statistics work out to a projected .700 winning percentage. That’s a 113-win pace for a full season, and playing well enough to have a 113-win season with neutral luck is outrageous.

You also don’t need me to tell you that the Astros offense is great. Their team batting line so far this year is .275/.349/.488, good for a 126 wRC+. If the entire Astros offense were a player, they’d be a top-60 hitter in all of baseball. Not the Astros starters. Not qualifying Astros batters. The entire team, backup catchers and minor league call-ups and all, is producing slightly better than Ronald Acuna this year. Ronald Acuna signed a $100 million contract this year and people protested how underpaid he is. Again, the entire Astros team is hitting like that.

The thing is, though, you also already knew that. Astros offense superlatives and near-superlatives are endless. They strike out less than any team but the Angels. They hit for more power than any team other than the Twins. They get on base more than any team in baseball. In a stadium that doesn’t help offense, they’re scoring 5.2 runs a game, with underlying statistics that look like they should be scoring 5.5. They’re hitting for the highest batting average in baseball and simultaneously have the third-most home runs, all without having played the Orioles. Average or power? Porque no los dos?

Yes, finding new and interesting things to say about the Astros offense is challenging. I’m going to try, though. One of the strengths of this Astros team is their incredible star power. George Springer is vying with Mike Trout for the most WAR in the American League, with a 172 wRC+ that’s sixth in baseball. Alex Bregman is replicating his breakout 2018 — a 152 wRC+ with more walks than strikeouts. He’s running a BABIP of .237 despite an xBABIP of .316 — he could actually be due for some positive regression! Michael Brantley has turned the Astros’ one lineup hole from 2018, left field, into a point of strength. He’s striking out a what-are-you-talking-about 9.5% of the time while hitting for power on his way to a 144 wRC+.

Those three players have been worth a combined seven wins above replacement. They have a collective 156 wRC+. The only teams with a better-hitting top three (minimum 100 PA per batter) are the Dodgers and the Cubs (the Pirates are a close fourth). The Astros’ stars, in other words, are the envy of nearly all of baseball. As an aside, the best three Marlins batters have put up a cumulative 99 wRC+. What’s an article about a great offense without a fun fact about the inverse?

That’s all well and good — the cream of the Astro crop is incredible. You probably knew that, because all three players are drawing headlines. Great, cool, amazing. What you might not know, though, is that the rest of the offense is incredible as well. Think of it this way: George Springer just went on the 10-day IL with a hamstring strain. How will the Astros offense fare without him? Well, the rest of their team has combined for a 122 wRC+ this year, which would be the second-best batting team in the majors, behind only the equally hot Twins.

We can take this further. Let’s get rid of Bregman as well. Without Bregman and Springer, the Astros would have a 116 wRC+, good for the fifth-best non-pitcher wRC+. Two MVP candidates down, the Astros are nipping at the Cubs’ heels for fourth-best offense in baseball. Heck, let’s go further and take out Brantley. With all three of the Astros’ top trio removed (and again, they’re one of the best groups in baseball), the remaining Astros have compiled a 112 wRC+ this year. That batting line would be fifth-best in baseball, just ahead of the Braves. The Braves have a dynamic offense, with sensational young talent backed by Freddie Freeman. That’s how good the Astros are after you get rid of three MVP candidates. If that doesn’t make much sense to you, well — good. It’s outrageous!

We can go further. The weighted wRC+ of the Astros’ 4th-6th best hitters (Carlos Correa, Jake Marisnick, and Robinson Chirinos) is 137. Want to replace Marisnick’s small sample with a larger sample of a worse batting line from Josh Reddick? It’s still 133. As you might expect, this group of 4th-6th offensive options is the best such group in baseball. The Rangers’ trio of Logan Forsythe (not as washed up as I expected), Elvis Andrus, and Danny Santana are within striking distance at a 127 wRC+, but no one is particularly close to matching the Astros’ trio. Heck, this Astros group is better than 15 other teams’ top three hitters, even if you use the lower-wRC+ Reddick group. The Astros’ mid-tier guys are simply unlucky — they’d be the best three guys on plenty of teams.

Let’s get really crazy now. Let’s exclude the six best hitters from the Astro lineup. I’m cutting Reddick out here in the interest of making the remaining lineup score as poorly as possible. With none of their top six hitters, the Astros have a remaining team wRC+ of 98. The back half of the team, the part that is largely comprised of fifth outfielders and utility infielders and backup catchers, is almost as good at batting as the league as a whole.

If that sounds absurd, it’s because it is. There’s an MVP candidate having a so-so year in this group (Jose Altuve and his 117 wRC+), which is only notable because it’s not one of the best eight batting lines on the team. Aledmys Diaz has a 118 wRC+, which would rank among the top 10 second basemen in baseball if he could get on the field enough to qualify. Heck, even Tony Kemp’s 86 wRC+ isn’t too bad — it’s certifiably great for a fifth outfielder, but it’s not even embarrassing for the worst regular starter on a team, which Kemp most emphatically is not.

How stacked is this Astros team? If the top six Astros weren’t allowed to bat and instead of replacing them with minor leaguers, the team filled in the missing plate appearances with the remaining players’ 2019 lines, the team would project to score roughly 4.5 runs a game after accounting for park factors. With the team’s great pitching (3.53 runs per game allowed), their Pythagorean winning percentage would be .611. The hobbled Astros would have the fifth-best Pythagorean winning percentage in baseball. Want it in BaseRuns? That still works out to a .610 expected winning percentage, fourth-best in baseball.

Now, in reality, this is more of a fun fact about the Astros pitching staff than one about their hitters. Replace the historically dominant Astros offense with a sub-100 wRC+ bunch, and the team would still be one of the best in baseball. Their pitching is just that good. But it’s also an Astros offense fun fact because that 100-ish wRC+ team just so happens to be the Astros’ offense after subtracting out their six best hitters in 2019.

Just to drive the point home, here’s a table of the Astros offense, only subtracting out their x best hitters. The distance you have to go down the line to make a bad team is staggering. The Astros minus their top nine hitters would have the same wRC+ as the Indians this year!

The 2019 Astros are an exercise in baseball absurdity. Their best hitters are as good as any team’s best hitters. Their mid-tier hitters are better than a bunch of other teams’ best hitters. Their worst hitters are league average. If it’s hard to wrap your head around how good this team is, that’s reasonable. Teams don’t bat this well for full seasons. Since 1900, the only team with a better league-adjusted full-season line is the 1927 Yankees, who were literally nicknamed Murderer’s Row. Teams that hit like the Astros are dimly remembered myths, not flesh-and-blood modern concerns. That’s not a comparison you can make in your head, most likely, because it isn’t one I can make in mine.

Getting rid of the good players makes a comparison a little more mentally reasonable. Remove three MVP candidates, and the Astros are still one of the best-hitting teams in baseball. Remove three more of the best hitters in baseball, and the dregs of the team still hit like the A’s or the Nationals. So don’t focus on the aggregate line, the pure statistical absurdity of the 2019 Astros. Focus on how well every part of the Astros lineup is hitting, how their utility infielder hits like your All-Star second baseman. This performance almost certainly won’t keep up, but it’s still amazing to marvel at the extent of their excellence in 2019.

What does ZiPS have for Yordan Alvarez’s translation?

Is Alvarez for real?

Do the Astros need to call up Alvarez right now?

Scattered within my weekly chat questions about cat and chili, there were quite a few questions revolving on Yordan Alvarez, who has spent the first two months of the 2019 season traumatizing minor league pitchers. So naturally, instead of answering the questions, I greedily saved the Alvarez talk for an article on the subject.

Prior to this season, Alvarez was ranked seventh in Houston’s farm system by Eric Longenhagen and Kiley McDaniel on the strength of his raw power potential. Ranking seventh on the Astros says more about the team’s organizational strength than any negative about Alvarez; he’s not someone who would appear in a Fringe Five column. While with a lot of minor league outfielders, you try to see if they can stick in center as long as possible, this was never a realistic option for Alvarez, who is cut from the massive slugger template.

But if you thought he was a one-dimensional type of hitter, a Pedro Cerrano type, you’d be wrong. While it’s not believed that he’ll maintain high batting averages in the majors, I think he might hang onto better averages than many think. For one, he has an efficient, easy swing and is willing to use the entire field, making him less likely to be subject to shift abuse than some other sluggers in the majors. Just to illustrate, here’s Alvarez’s spray chart in the minors in 2019 compared to Max Kepler, a more pull-heavy left-handed hitter.

Alvarez has kept his swinging strike rate under 10% in the high minors, and in the early going, he has cut off about a quarter of his 2018 strikeout rate. His walk rate has also edged higher; Alvarez is a hitter who eats what he hunts. ZiPS uses play-by-play data to estimate a version of xBABIP that I refer to as zBABIP (you don’t win the Kewpie doll for guessing what the z stands for). Alvarez won’t keep the .424 BABIP that’s currently driving his .400 batting average in the minors, of course, but the hit data suggests he may keep quite a lot of it. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers —Ryan Pressly, Trent Thornton, and Justin Verlander — on how they learned and developed their curveballs.

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Ryan Pressly, Houston Astros

“I started throwing a curveball when I was around 14-15 years old. Steve Busby was my pitching coach growing up — the guy played in the big leagues for a long time and threw a couple of no-hitters — and he taught me his curveball. He told me I could only throw it with him during our pitching lessons. Once I got to eighth grade, or freshman year, is when I started throwing it in games.

“How my curveball works is kind of just a natural thing. My spin rate… I mean, I know why my spin rate increased. You hear all of this stuff about the Astros, but it’s not nearly the case. My spin rate increased because my velocity started increasing. I tore my lat in 2015, and when I came back my velocity kept going up. As the velocity goes up on your curveball, the spin rate is going to go up as well. I’ve also been throwing it more and more, and getting consistent with it. That’s a big reason it has gotten better. Read the rest of this entry »

In 2014, George Springer received an April callup to the majors and for half a season, he was Houston’s second-best player, with Jose Altuve leading the way. In 2015, Springer was on his way to a very good season when he fractured his wrist. Despite playing in just 102 games, he put up nearly four wins, about half a win shy of Altuve’s total. In 2016, Springer put up a very good five-win campaign, but he was bested not just by Altuve, but by rising shortstop Carlos Correa. The trio finished in the same order the following season, but last season, Alex Bregman jumped to the front of the pack, followed by a five-win season from Altuve, and a disappointing three-win year from Springer. Entering this season, Springer looked like the fourth-best position player on the Astros, but thus far, he’s been the fourth-best position player in baseball and tops in the American League.

Springer hasn’t exactly languished in the shadows of his star teammates, but his best seasons haven’t been nearly as good as their’s have been, and at 29 years old, he’s the same age as Altuve, four years older than Bregman, and five years Correa’s senior. Despite his relatively lesser status on the Astros, Springer’s 19 wins since the start of the 2015 season rank 21st in baseball, just ahead of Anthony Rizzo, J.D. Martinez, Andrelton Simmons, Charlie Blackmon, Giancarlo Stanton, and Correa. His 117 homers ranks 20th, just ahead of Kris Bryant and Freddie Freeman. Since the start of the 2016 season, his 15 wins are 15th among position players and his 101 homers is 12th in the sport. Looking at Springer’s numbers over multiple years helps to shape a greater appreciation for him, but it also glosses over a disappointing 2018 season.

Last season, Springer looked a lot like the player he’d been earlier in his career, with a walk rate around 10% and a strikeout rate twice that. His batted ball profile in terms of groundballs, fly balls and balls pulled looked the same. He had roughly the same number of doubles as in previous years. The problems for Springer came because the ball just wan’t flying out of the park. His 22 home runs constituted a big drop after hitting 63 the previous two seasons, and his .169 ISO was close to average. He just wasn’t hitting the ball as hard, with an average exit velocity on fly balls that was down to 92.6 mph from 94.4 mph in 2017, per Baseball Savant. In 2017, his average fly ball went 338 feet; it was down to 329 feet last season. Read the rest of this entry »

A rough stretch for Jose Altuve has hit a new bump. The Astros’ second baseman, who has been scuffling considerably for the past three weeks, left Friday night’s game during the first inning shortly after legging out an infield hit. While manager A.J. Hinch called the injury a “slight strain of his hamstring,” the team has opted to play it safe by placing the 29-year-old former MVP on the injured list for just the second time in his career, thus forestalling the end of his current slump.

Via MLB.com’s Brian McTaggart, “Altuve said he felt his muscle tighten when he was running to first base and then became worried when the hamstring continued to bother him while he was getting his secondary lead off first base.” Rather than sit Altuve for a few days, the Astros opted to replace him on the active roster. Said Hinch:

“When you have these three-, five-, seven-day injuries, they always last longer than you think. We’ve gone through this with [Altuve] before. We’ve gone through this with Alex [Bregman]. We went through this with George [Springer]. These quads and hammies and calves, as soon as you think it’s four or five days, you probably should err on the side of caution and put them on the injured list and play with a full team.”

With a 27-15 record and a 6.5-game lead in the AL West through Monday, the Astros can afford to be cautious, particularly if the break provides Altuve a chance to reset his season. A six-time All-Star and a career .314/.364/.454 hitter, he’s batting a meager .169/.289/.299 over his past 90 plate appearances, dating back to April 17. Propped up by nine homers — compared to 13 all last season — his overall batting line (.243/.329/.472 in 164 plate appearances) is still respectable; his 119 wRC+ is tied for sixth among all second basemen, just seven points below his career mark and 16 points below last year. The likes of Brian Dozier (.197/.301/.331, 72 wRC+) or Robinson Cano (.261/.315/.399, 97 wRC+) would gladly swap stats, though in the context of Altuve’s career, the shape of his current production is somewhat unsettling. Read the rest of this entry »

Corbin Martin made his major league debut on Sunday, striking out nine and walking one over 5.1 innings, taking over, at least temporarily, the rotation spot of the struggling Collin McHugh. McHugh, a steady hand for the Astros since 2014, has seen his walk rate and home run rate increase, culminating in a three inning, eight earned run outing against the Royals on May 7.

Martin’s debut made him the fourth draftee from the 2017 class to reach the majors, after Kyle Wright, Nick Margevicius, and Griffin Canning. Long considered a talented prospect, Martin was heavily recruited out of Cypress Ranch High School and chose to turn down pro overtures to attend Texas A&M. The Houston-area native (he grew up in Hempstead and moved to Cypress for high school, both northwest of the city) had some ups and downs in his college career, often flashing tantalizing stuff but struggling to consistently harness it. He pitched nearly exclusively out of the bullpen for the Aggies during his first two years, amassing a total of just 44 innings pitched and striking out 54 while walking 33.

Scouts considered Martin’s 2016 summer campaign in the prestigious Cape Cod League to be a potential breakout. Pitching out of the bullpen for the Falmouth Commodores, Martin struck out 22 and walked just three in 15.2 innings, flashing a dynamic mid-90s fastball and an above average breaking ball to go along with his easy, athletic delivery. There was significant first round buzz heading into his junior season, and an expectation that he would cement himself atop of the Aggies’ strong pitching rotation and lead them through SEC play.

Martin ended up making 24 appearances and 13 starts as a junior for A&M, finishing third on the team in innings pitched behind Brigham Hill and Stephen Kolek. The inconsistent command he showed during his first two years in College Station was less significant but was still present, as he walked 38 batters in 87.2 innings. The intrigue scouts saw in Martin kept him in the conversation for those going toward the top of the draft despite the inconsistent performance. The Astros saw an opportunity to get the athletic right-hander in the second round of the 2017 draft, giving him a $1 million signing bonus with the 56th overall pick. Read the rest of this entry »

Things haven’t been going the Mariners’ way lately. With Tuesday’s loss to the Yankees, they fell to 19-19, thereby setting a record for the fastest plunge to .500 for a team that started the season 13-2. In the third inning of Thursday night’s contest, second baseman Dee Gordon departed the game after being hit on the right wrist by a J.A. Happ fastball, and after manager Scott Servais pinch-hit for fill-in Dylan Moore in the top of the eighth, he resorted to calling upon first baseman Edwin Encarnacion to shift to second base, a position he’d never played before during his 20-year professional career. When the Yankees’ DJ Lemahieu led off the bottom of the eighth with a 100-mph grounder towards second, the 36-year-old Encarnacion gamely dove for the ball, not only coming up empty but rolling the wrist of his left (glove) hand.

Encarnacion was able to continue, but Gordon is still being evaluated. So much for one wag’s theory that the move would improve the Mariners’ defense, which has been downright dreadful, as I noted in passing during my look at the Nationals’ porous defense and disappointing start. Read the rest of this entry »

Is it premature to call Michael Brantley the best free agent signing of the 2018-19 offseason? Probably, but that depends on how one defines “best.” Also important are the words “so far,” which are admittedly not in the initial question, but are still significant nonetheless. If we are trying to determine a total return on investment, we’d need to evaluate the impact of many factors, including those not specifically seen on the field.

By this process, one could argue that Bryce Harper has been the “best” free agent so far, generating increased interest in baseball in Philadelphia (attendance numbers are an indication of this) and setting the professional sports record for most jersey sales in the first 24 hours of a launch. Those are certainly positive numbers for the Phillies’ brass, but that’s not what I’m looking at here.

Narrowing our focus down to on-field production alone, no 2018-19 free agent signee has been better so far than the Astros’ new outfielder. Though 37 games, Brantley has produced 1.7 WAR, putting himself in first by a 0.4-win gap over the next closest player, Charlie Morton. He’s half a win ahead of the next position player, with Eduardo Escobar and DJ LeMahieu each having been worth 1.2 wins. Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

I turned last Thursday’s edition in too late for publication (I lost track of time at an Extended game) but certainly won’t deprive you of the notes I have from that day. Here they are:

Xavier Edwards, SS, San Diego Padres
Level: Low-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: tbd   FV: 45+
Line: 5-for-5, 2B

Notes
After 21 Low-A games, X is hitting .390/.450/.455 and has walked more than he has struck out. He has just one extra-base hit and has been caught stealing a bunch, but even for one of the more advanced high school bats from last year’s class, this is a strong start. Gabriel Arias was just put on the IL at Hi-A Lake Elsinore and Edwards has out-performed Justin Lopez and Tucupita Marcano, so he might be in line for a quick move up depending on the severity of Arias’ injury.

Yordan Alvarez, LF/1B, Houston Astros
Level: Triple-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 7   FV: 50
Line: 6-for-8, 2 2B, HR, BB (double header)

Notes
The use of the major league baseball at Triple-A combined with the PCL hitting environment has had, um, some impact on offensive performance. It’s important to keep this in mind when considering what Alvarez has done so far, though his line through 23 games — .386/.474/.916(!) with 12 homers — is remarkable. Notably, several of those homers have come against breaking balls, which Alvarez is particularly adept at identifying and adjusting to mid-flight. He does not have a sellout, max-effort swing — this power comes easy and it plays to all fields, as seven of Alvarez’s homers this season have been opposite field shots. He was toward the back of our 50 FV group pre-season because of concerns about his body and defensive limitations, but he’s hitting like someone who belongs toward the front of that tier, up near Pete Alonso. Read the rest of this entry »