Editor’s Note: the following post contains spicy language.

J.D. Martinez had just concluded a chat with a Tigers beat reporter when I approached him Monday afternoon. I sensed him preparing to escape my forthcoming interview request in the Joker Marchant Stadium clubhouse as I walked in his direction. He’d just risen from the cushioned chair in front of his locker and picked up a cardboard box of personal effects as I introduced myself. His body language wasn’t suggestive of much interest in engaging in conversation with me and, to be fair, I was a stranger. We had never spoken. He had just finished playing six innings of an exhibition game and was presumably was looking forward to the rest of the day.

But then I explained why I was interested in speaking with him. He rested the box on a laundry cart, freed his hands, seemed to warm to the idea (or possibly not), and opened up.

I wanted to ask Martinez whether baseball is on the cusp of a fly-ball revolution, whether we’re about to see the sort of approach already adopted by Martinez, Josh Donaldson and Justin Turner — all of whom have experienced great personal success — become more widely adopted and accepted in the majors. Jeff Sullivan and I have written quite a bit about the potential fly-ball revolution in recent weeks as you can read here, here, here and here. But Monday offered a chance to get a key perspective from an early adopter and perhaps a significant influencer.

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Everyone loves to observe a rebuild, so along those lines, we’re all waiting to see where the White Sox ultimately deal Jose Quintana. The Yankees have been in there, and the Pirates have been in there, but another team to draw frequent mention has been the Astros. As the Astros have been evaluated, it’s been my impression that the rotation is considered the potential weakness. Hence the Quintana link. You get how this works.

You’ve presumably noticed that Jose Quintana doesn’t play for the Astros yet. The Astros themselves are inclined to open the year with what they already have. Among the in-house options is a free agent the team signed fairly quietly last November. The Astros inked Charlie Morton to a two-year, sort of speculative contract after he was injured last year in his fourth start. Morton is entering his mid-30s, and he has an extensive injury history. Plus, there’s the 119 career ERA-. What grabbed the Astros’ attention was this:

Before Morton got hurt, he was throwing harder than ever. He had his hardest sinker, his hardest curveball, and his hardest splitter, plus a new-ish, hard cutter. Among pitchers who started games in both 2015 and 2016, Morton had the third-biggest fastball-velocity improvement, behind only David Phelps and James Paxton. It was enough to take a chance, considering Morton’s injury was to his leg. There’s upside in ground-ball pitchers with new velocity.

The question was whether the velocity bump would be real. So far, so good.

Morton, who saw a velocity spike last March and April before blowing out his hamstring, said afterward he felt like the ball came out of his hand well. His sinker sat between 94 and 96 mph, according to one scout’s radar gun.

The bulk of spring-training results are pretty much useless. Velocity is one of those things that’s difficult to fake. Beyond that, historically, spring velocity has been a little lower than regular-season velocity, since pitchers are still working up to 100%. So: It’s early, but it’s very encouraging. Charlie Morton seems to still have that zip, at a time when not having the same zip would be forgivable. More velocity tends to make pitchers better.

Morton’s sinker is a proven ground-ball pitch. With more speed, it would also become a less hittable pitch. He trusts his splitter, and as far as his curveball goes, last year’s closest pitch comp was Stephen Strasburg’s curveball. Morton’s curve ranked 10th in average spin rate, out of 507. He’s there ahead of names like Jeremy Hellickson and Lance McCullers. The Astros also intend to have Morton keep using that cutter to keep lefties honest.

It doesn’t mean anything’s a lock. It certainly doesn’t mean Morton will stay healthy enough to make 20 or 25 starts. But the Astros took a chance, and based on how Morton is throwing, he resembles a legitimate power pitcher with ground-ball and putaway stuff. The Doug Fister flier didn’t pan out. This one could make a good rotation great.

In baseball, luck is a tricky concept. In some cases, it’s used to describe an event that’s within the normal distribution of outcomes but far from the mean. In other cases, what we call luck might actually be the first signs of an outlying skill for which we simply lack a sufficiently large sample to identify.

We’ve developed a new understanding on one kind of luck in recent years — namely, the sort that occurs with a batted ball. With Statcast data, we can look at the shape and size of a ball in play and try to decide what the batter “deserved” from that sort of ball in play. Then we compare it to actual outcomes. The difference between the observed and expected outcome is luck.

What if you want to look at a luck on a specific pitch type, though? How would you do it? You could look at the results on the pitch and basically use the Statcast-type process from the other side of the ball. What sorts of balls in play did that pitch produce, and what sort of results should those balls in play have produced? The problem with that approach is that you’re slicing a pitcher’s repertoire into small samples when you start talking about balls in play off a specific pitch. Even David Price, for example — who led the majors in innings last year — allowed fewer than 300 balls in play on his most frequently thrown pitch, the fastball. Secondary pitches are, almost by definition, thrown much less often. Variance isn’t the exception in such cases, but the rule.

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Over at the fantasy blog, they’ll be publishing their annual bold predictions soon. Those posts, as usual, will cater to the roto side of things. They’re fun to write. And, even though I’m no longer editing RotoGraphs anymore, I’d like to continue the tradition. So I’ve decided to do a version that’s aimed more at the real game.

Let’s stretch our imagination and make some predictions that are a little bit sane (they should be rooted in reality to some extent), but also a little bit insane (since the insane happens in baseball every year anyway). Back when I did this for fantasy, I hit 3-for-10 most years. Doubt I do it again, for some reason.

What follows are my 10 bold predictions for 2017.

1. Dylan Bundy will be the ace he was always supposed to be.
Once picked fourth overall and pegged as the future ace of the Orioles, Bundy had a terrible time in the minor leagues. Over five years, he managed only 111 innings between injuries. There was Tommy John, of course, but lat strains, shoulder-calcification issues and between-start bouts of elbow soreness have dogged him throughout, as well. At least he was good while he was in, with an ERA in the low twos and great rates to support those results.

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I got to participate in the voting for last season’s American League Rookie of the Year award. Like almost everyone else, I agonized over whether to go with Gary Sanchez or Michael Fulmer, before ultimately settling on the latter. Tyler Naquin rounded out my ballot. It was the most common ballot — there were a dozen, out of 30, that read like mine.

If I had a fourth-place slot, I would’ve found room for Christopher Devenski. As is, Devenski showed up on five ballots, finishing third on four and second on one. There were many rookies last year who were pretty good. Devenski, somehow, has seemingly flown under the radar. He was so good!

If I wanted, I could leave it at this — there were 142 different pitchers in all of baseball who threw at least 100 innings. Here are the best of them, by ERA-:

1. Clayton Kershaw, 43
2. Kyle Hendricks, 51
3. Chris Devenski, 52

But you could look at the fact that Devenski allowed just four homers and conclude he got lucky. He probably did. Doesn’t mean he didn’t get better and better. It’s Devenski’s second half that really stands out. After the All-Star break, he threw 49.2 innings. Here are some percentile rankings out of everyone who cleared 25 post-ASB frames.

Down the stretch, Devenski threw strikes like Max Scherzer, and he missed bats like…well, also Max Scherzer. He compelled hitters to constantly chase out of the zone, in part a testament to his outstanding changeup. But you shouldn’t come away believing Devenski was some kind of soft-tosser; by September he was throwing his average fastball around 94 miles per hour.

Devenski was underrated because he wasn’t really a starting pitcher. He did start a few times, but he predominantly relieved, without closing. As you know, statistically speaking, relievers have it easier. Yet Devenski wasn’t a reliever of the conventional sort. The last bar in the plot above reads PA/GR. That’s out of a different sample pool — all relievers with at least 10 appearances in the second half. The category itself refers to average plate appearances per relief appearance. Devenski was close to the top. He wasn’t a matchup guy, or a one-inning guy. He was more of a multi-inning swingman, which makes his numbers all the more remarkable. He was that good, for dozens of pitches at a time.

Borrowing from Texas Leaguers, Devenski made a midseason change that could’ve driven his greater success.

As the season wore on, Devenski all but abandoned his curveball, replacing it with a sharper slider. He showed excellent command of the pitch, and opponents missed it nearly half of the time they swung. Here’s Devenski using the slider to get back in the count:

The slider gave Devenski a consistent third pitch. In the second half, he threw it 22% of the time. He threw his fastball 40% of the time. And he threw his changeup — this changeup — 32% of the time.

Lefties would see all three pitches. Righties would see all three pitches. And Devenski’s over-the-top delivery presumably added some measure of deception. His fastball comes with a good amount of rise, and the changeup plays off of it perfectly. The slider is why the Astros are still thinking about Devenski as potentially becoming a starter. He might work well for five or six innings at a time. It’s already clear he can work well for two or three.

Devenski is going to be a key part of the Astros’ enviable pitching depth, no matter his role. Whether he’s rotation insurance or a steady presence in the bullpen, he’ll provide something every manager wants. As he showed over last season’s final three months, he can pitch as well as almost anyone else, and this from someone who was a completely unheralded prospect. A 25th-round draft pick who was included as a PTBNL for Brett Myers. You can give the White Sox some credit for identifying and developing Jose Quintana. In a similar but opposite way, I guess Devenski was an oversight.

The Astros’ 2015 season ended because of a total bullpen meltdown. Before that, the bullpen had been fairly steady, but the Astros made damn sure there wouldn’t be a repeat. And so, last year, the Astros led all of major-league baseball in bullpen WAR. They finished fourth in bullpen WPA, and they project to be strong as a unit once again. There’s Michael Feliz, coming off an FIP- of 76. Luke Gregerson is coming off an FIP- of 70. Ken Giles finished last year at 62. Will Harris finished last year at 55. Even Christopher Devenski finished last year at 55, having thrown maybe the quietest 100-odd excellent innings I can recall. And then, as you read down the depth chart, you come across the name James Hoyt. Let me tell you about James Hoyt.

Hoyt is 30 years old, and only last year did he make his big-league debut. That usually isn’t a promising sign. Hoyt came to the Astros from the Braves in the Evan Gattis trade, and you’ll remember that Gattis has an incredible backstory, involving rehab, depression, going undrafted, and being a janitor. When Gattis was first emerging, consensus was that he was one of the best stories in the game. Now, I don’t know if Hoyt’s story is as good as his teammate’s. To my knowledge, Hoyt has never been an inpatient in a psychiatric facility. But in the deal, there were two amazing stories packaged together. And Hoyt might now be on the verge of making a name for himself.

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In November 2014, we ran an interview with Mike Elias, who was then Houston’s director of amateur scouting. Two-plus years later, he has a new title and more responsibilities. The 34-year-old Yale University product now has the title of Assistant General Manager, Scouting and Player Development.

Elias addressed several subjects in the earlier interview, but very little of the conversation was about pitching. This time around, we talked exclusively about pitching. The scouting process — including injury-risk assessments and offspeed deliveries — was the primary focus, but we also delved heavily into last year’s first-round pick. With the 17th selection of the 2016 draft, the Astros took 6-foot-7 right-hander Forrest Whitley out of a San Antonio, Texas high school.

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Elias on how scouting pitchers has, and hasn’t, changed: “It has definitely evolved, but it is still, and I believe it always will be, most reliant on the opinions of the scouts who have seen the players in person, and know the players personally. Our scouts still spend much of their time getting a good seat behind home plate and evaluating the pitcher’s stuff, command, and delivery. They look for future improvement in those areas. Another big part of what they do is learn about the player off the field, through conversations with coaches and acquaintances, and getting to know the player himself.

“The thing that changed is the amount of information outside of the scouting report we receive. That extends from the player’s performance stats — that’s if he’s a college kid — to video analysis of his delivery. Every team does that, although every team does it a little differently. And a lot of radar technology has become available over the last few years. It has spread from just being in major-league parks to trickling down through the minor leagues and even into most college environments. Even high-school fields, throughout the major tournaments with Perfect Game.

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The St. Louis Cardinals’ former director of amateur scouting, Chris Correa, is serving 46 months in jail for gaining unauthorized access to the Astros’ player information/evaluation database, codenamed Ground Control. A few days ago, MLB announced St. Louis’s penalty: they’d have to send $2 million and their top two draft picks to Houston.

From a network-security perspective, the case is interesting. It illustrates how difficult true network security really is, which raises the strong possibility that another team will attempt this in the future (if indeed one isn’t doing it right now).

Here’s a timeline of the incident up until it was made public:

• March 2013 – April 2014: Correa accesses Ground Control using passwords of various Astros staff. (Source: David Barron and Jake Kaplan of the Houston Chronicle.)
• June 2014: Deadspin posts leaked documents that were retrieved from Ground Control, mostly regarding trades or potential trades during the 2013 season. This action causes the Astros to contact MLB, who contacts the FBI to begin an investigation into the breach. (Source: Derrick Goold and Robert Partrick of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)
• June 2015: Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times reports that the Cardinals are the prime suspects in this investigation.

Why didn’t the Astros detect the unauthorized access themselves? I don’t know anything about how they ran their security team, so I can only speculate. But I do have several years of experience in the network-security industry. I’ll use those to provide a perspective.

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To whatever extent the Astros are going to have issues, they probably won’t have to worry too much about the lineup. As Mike Petriello recently wrote, said lineup looks to be incredibly deep. Based just on Steamer and our present depth charts, the Astros project to have easily the best-hitting lineup in the American League. The Red Sox come in second, but they trail by more than 30 runs. Steamer is just one system, and ZiPS will join it soon, but the point is made clear: The Astros offense looks good. They’ll score a bunch.

Yet something else has taken place, quietly. As the Astros have built a better order, there’s also been a rather significant side effect. I can’t tell you whether it’s been intentional, or whether it’s been a coincidence. But if you can believe it, the Astros are going to make contact. In fact, they project to be very nearly the best contact-hitting lineup in the game.

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“I’m a completely different hitter from each side of the plate,” Hank Conger told me one time. He went on to describe how he had more loft in his swing from one side. Switch-hitter Billy Burns said about the same thing, speculating that his relative lack of experience hitting from the left side was the cause for his lack of power on contact from that side. “My muscles aren’t as strong there,” he told me in July of 2015. Even if a player is capable of hitting — even hitting well — from both sides of the plate, that doesn’t mean he’s the same type of hitter from both sides. Subtle differences are bound to be present.

All of this may explain a strange thing that happened to Jonathan Villar last year.

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