This past Sunday’s Notes column led with Alex Bregman talking about how hitting the ball in the air became a priority once he’d signed with the Astros. That approach paid off in spades yesterday. With his team down a run, the 2015 draft pick took a Chris Sale pitch over Fenway Park’s Green Monster to tie the game in the eighth inning. Houston went on to win 5-4 and advance to the ALCS.

When I approached Bregman after the game, his first words were, “How was the launch angle on that?” (I hadn’t looked it up yet, but it was 32 degrees.) Asked if he liked whatever the launch angle was, he smiled and said that he loved it.

Needless to say, the youngster was in seventh heaven.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the wild and remote southeast corner of Oregon, tucked near to the eastern side of the Owyhee River, there’s a canyon that used to be known as Dugout Gulch. It was renamed Leslie Gulch in remembrance of Hiram E. Leslie, an area rancher who, in 1882, was struck by lightning. It wouldn’t be fair to say that getting struck by lightning was a habit of Leslie’s. He was no more likely to get struck than any other rancher in the region. Yet get struck by lightning, Leslie did. Well past a century later, it’s how we recall him today.

Josh Reddick has spent a career being unclutch. Greatly unclutch, incredibly unclutch, almost unfathomably unclutch. Ben Lindbergh wrote about it at the end of June. We have a win-expectancy-based Clutch metric on our leaderboards, and, since Reddick debuted, no hitter has a lower Clutch score. We actually have this stuff going back to 1974, and, since then, on a per-600-plate-appearance basis, Reddick currently stands as the least-clutch hitter out of everyone. He just edges out Ron Kittle and Richard Hidalgo. If you think that this is somehow misleading, it’s not. When Reddick has batted with the leverage low, he’s posted a 121 wRC+. When he’s batted with medium leverage, he’s posted a 99 wRC+. When he’s batted with the leverage high, his wRC+ has been 70. The history is all right there, inarguable. Josh Reddick has not exactly risen to the occasion.

This always seems to lead to the same conversation, about how clutch performance isn’t predictive. That’s true — it’s not. Or at least, it’s not easy to spot when it is. Possibly, or even probably, Reddick isn’t an unclutch hitter. But Hiram E. Leslie probably wasn’t lightning-prone. At some point, you’re just defined by what’s happened. It’s not easy for Reddick to erase his own record.

Yet days like Monday can help. Monday, in Boston, Reddick drove in the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth. The Astros went ahead by one, and the Astros finished ahead by one, having eliminated the Red Sox in four games. A number of different players all helped the cause, but in the eighth, with baseball’s most unhittable pitcher on the mound with two outs, the least-clutch hitter in decades knocked an RBI single the other way. The Astros found themselves on the verge of advance.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leading 2-1 in the series, and 2-1 in game four, A.J. Hinch just summoned Justin Verlander from the bullpen to try and protect the lead and allow the Astros to finish the ALDS without having to go back to Houston for a winner-take-all finale. Given how good Chris Sale has looked for the Red Sox, and how dominant David Price was for Boston yesterday, it’s easy to see the appeal of putting your best arm on the mound and just riding him to victory.

But this decision just felt like an overreaction given the alternatives. Warming up next to Verlander was Will Harris. Will Harris isn’t a big name, but for the last few years, he’s been one of the best relievers in baseball.

Harris was his usual dominant self this year, allowing a .262 wOBA. He posted the lowest BB% and the highest K% of his career. He doesn’t have Verlander’s velocity, but his cutter/curveball combination has led to consistently dominant results.

But despite being warm, Hinch went with Verlander. I’m not going to pretend that Andrew Benintendi’s home run — hit just 90 mph, and a ball that Statcast gave just a 5% hit probability to — was the obvious outcome here, or that the decision was clearly a mistake because the outcome went badly.

But as much as it is refreshing to question whether managers are too aggressive in using their best pitchers this year, as opposed to watching Zach Britton sit in the bullpen as his team’s season ended a year ago, it feels like this was an example of the tide turning too far in the other direction. It’s great to have a guy like Verlander that you really believe in, but you can’t win a World Series with just a few pitchers. You have to trust your depth guys too.

If we’ve gotten to the point where we’re choosing to put a starter who has never pitched in relief in before a guy like Harris, a legitimately elite reliever, then I think the pendulum has swung too far the other direction. Especially when the Astros didn’t have to win Game 4. The worst case scenario for them in this game was that they head home with a fresh Verlander to take the mound, and Dallas Keuchel to bridge the gap between him and Ken Giles.

Now, they’re down 3-2 in this game, and might still head back to Houston for Game 5, only Keuchel will likely be the starter, and Verlander might be the guy pitching a few innings of relief instead. The Astros may have just unnecessarily reduced their worst-case outcome in Game 4 to an even worse position, because they didn’t trust a really good reliever.

Alex Bregman slashed .337/.409/.514 in three seasons at Louisiana State University, twice earning All-American honors. Displaying outstanding bat-to-ball skills, he fanned just 68 times in 786 collegiate at bats. The Houston Astros rewarded his efforts by selecting him second overall in the 2015 draft.

And then they asked him to change.

“A ton,” answered Bregman, when asked how much he’s evolved as a hitter since signing. “In college, I tried to hit the ball on the ground and low line drives. Up here, there aren’t a lot of hits on the ground with guys like Carlos Correa and Andrelton Simmons playing shortstop. Now I try to not hit ground balls.”

The ink had barely dried on his contract when he was told to alter his approach. Organizations typically let first-year players finish the season before suggesting changes, but Bregman was told “right away” that something else was expected. Before he could get his feet wet at the professional level, he had to “learn on the fly how to drive a baseball.”

He proved to be a quick study. Two short years later, in his first full big-league season, the 23-year-old infielder put up a .284/.352/.475 slash line, and his 63 extra-base hits included 19 home runs. He strikes out more often than he used to — “I never used to swing and miss, and now I do occasionally” — but it’s not as though he’s become all or nothing. His K-rate was a wholly acceptable 15.5%.

The adjustments he made were both mental and mechanical in nature. Read the rest of this entry »

Perhaps we ought to have have written more about Jose Altuve at FanGraphs this season.

The last, and only, FanGraphs post dedicated solely to Altuve this year was published on Aug. 4, when the excellent Craig Edwards documented Altuve’s historic July and his MVP momentum.

Perhaps part of the reason there hasn’t been an avalanche of Altuve content is this: what more is there to say? Altuve is really good. We know he’s really good. One thing that has remained constant in this rapidly changing world is the sight of Altuve spraying line drives all over major-league outfields. He remains one of the best pure hitters in the sport, one who added power to his game beginning in 2015 and whose power spiked again in 2016 and 2017. Altuve is going to get his 200 hits, he’s going to make contact at an elite rate, and he’s going to defy the expectations created by his small stature.

Altuve has become so good, so steady, we — or, at least this author — generally turn our attention elsewhere to new trends, pop-up players, air-ball revolutionaries, etc.

But Altuve himself is evolving. He’s making gains as a power hitter (as you’re probably aware) and in other areas that are perhaps less obvious. And Altuve demanded our attention on Thursday afternoon in the Astros’ ALDS opener, recording three home runs, including two off of Chris Sale.

While the Astros and Altuve will obviously take the performance, it’s the kind of day that could have perhaps swayed MVP voters had it occurred a week earlier. It’s remarkable that the game’s largest man, Aaron Judge, and smallest, Altuve, are the AL MVP frontrunners and have produced nearly the same value despite occupying completely opposite ends of the physical spectrum.

Read the rest of this entry »

The first of two Wild Card games is scheduled for tonight. In addition to must-win baseball, this time of year is also typically marked by the appearance of a Dave Cameron piece on the merits of “bullpen-ing” a game — that is, the practice of using nothing but relievers in a single contest, of attempting to exploit matchups in order to maximize the chances of winning.

While the logic of “bullpen-ing” is sound in theory, it also fails to account for the comfort of pitchers who’ve potentially become attached to their roles. To get a better idea of how they might adapt to such an approach and how it might be handled in practice, I asked some actual players about it. Turns out, there’s a particular type of reliever who’s best suited to take the ball in the first few innings of a win-or-go-home game. And a particular type of pitcher who should follow him.

The first thing revealed by my inquiries is that relievers love the idea. “I’m down for whatever,” said Giants reliever Hunter Strickland with a smile. Nationals closer Sean Doolittle just laughed for a while. “Would I get paid like a starting pitcher?” he finally asked after the laughter had subsided.

Relievers would be fine with it because they’re accustomed to answering the call whenever. “We’re used to throwing in whatever inning, [if] not usually the first,” said Strickland. Added Miami’s Brad Ziegler: “I don’t think it would be very different for me, as much as it would be for the starter coming into the game [in the later innings]. His whole routine would have to change.”

And a starter probably would have to throw a couple innings in such a game — in order to reach a full complement of nine and still leave some arms for extras, that is. So the question is probably which kind of starter would adapt effectively to an otherwise unusual arrangement.

The answer? Probably a young one. Older starters are more married to their routines. “It’s very hard for me personally,” said Brandon McCarthy regarding the idea of starting a game in any other inning but the first. “My routine as a starter is fixed to the minute and a lot of guys are like that. It’s certainly not something impossible to deal with but could make a team nervous.”

Read the rest of this entry »

This time of year excites me for two reasons. One, of course, we’ve got the playoffs coming up, and no matter what you think about how the tournament is designed, this month is as exciting as baseball can get. Today and tomorrow, teams will be eliminated! Everything ends, ever so suddenly! It’s a gas. The other thing I love, though, is that all the season statistics are final. For the first time, I get to stop worrying about projections or extrapolations. What happened has happened. There is no more of the regular season, so the numbers on the leaderboards are as they will be forever.

It makes the writing easier, and more matter-of-fact. For example, here is a matter of certain fact: The 2017 Houston Astros had baseball’s most improved lineup. How can I say that? No one else improved by nearly so much in wRC+.

Read the rest of this entry »

This season, 144 players reached the 502-plate-appearance threshold necessary to qualify for the batting title. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there were 190 position players who tallied between one and 99 PA for the season. In between, there were 291 position players. Some of these were starters who simply missed time due to injury (Bryce Harper, for example) or the nature of their position (Salvador Perez) or because they weren’t major leaguers yet at the start of the season (Paul DeJong), but some of them are what we’d call true part-time players. At this time of year, we generally focus on the very best players. It’s awards season, after all. Part-time players get less shine. So let’s focus on them today, at the very least.

I’ve done this exercise once before, back in 2012. Now, as then, I’ve parsed the list to give us a clear picture of who is really a part-time player. My favorite tool for this exercise is the “Lineups and Defense” pages on Baseball-Reference. When they redesigned the website recently (I think it was recently? Maybe it was last year? I don’t know, I don’t even remember what I had for dinner on Thursday.) I experienced a few panicky minutes when I couldn’t find the pages, but fortunately they’re still there. Phew.

Read the rest of this entry »

Charlie Morton had a career year. In his first season with the Houston Astros, the 33-year-old right-hander is heading into October baseball with a record of 14-7 and a 3.62 ERA. The win total is a personal best, as are his 3.46 FIP and his 7.7 H/9.

Especially notable are his 10 strikeouts per nine innings and his 51.8% ground ball rate. The former is by far his highest, and the latter is by far his lowest. Morton was not only good during the regular season, he was also not the same pitcher he was in Pittsburgh.

“My stuff is different this year,” Morton told me on Thursday. “It’s not sinking as much — it’s harder, but it’s not sinking as much. My curve isn’t as vertical as it usually is; it’s not moving as much.

“When I was with the Pirates, from 2009-2015, I was a heavy sinker guy. I was over 60%, sinkers, and this year, against lefties, I might throw five sinkers in the whole game. My two-seam control has suffered a little bit, because I’m not throwing it as much. I’m four-seam, curveball, cutter, changeup — more of a mix. So really… it’s a balance of your identity, and of what you’re trying to do.” Read the rest of this entry »

Quick: who’s the best left-handed hitter likely to appear in the American League playoffs this October? If you took more than three seconds to come up with an answer, don’t worry, that’s perfectly normal. The National League contenders have plenty of high-profile left-handed hitters: Charlie Blackmon, Cody Bellinger, Bryce Harper, Daniel Murphy, and Anthony Rizzo immediately stand out. Not so in the American League.

Postseason roster construction can have a lot of consequences. Once rosters are set, there are only so many machinations that can or will surprise us, but in a lot of cases, series can be won or lost by the selection of the the last five guys on the roster. I focused on some interesting roster-construction decisions last week. In the meantime, the possible configurations of the Astros bullpen have remained with me. If Houston utilizes a tandem-starter approach, it will lessen their flexibility for their bullpen; as such, they might not have room for LOOGYs. Of course, a LOOGY is only necessary to the extent that there are dangerous left-handed batters to face. The potential absence of a LOOGY from the Houston bullpen led me to a larger question about the batters whom that pitcher might face — specifically, whether any of the AL teams need a LOOGY to navigate October?

Read the rest of this entry »