In August of last year, Ramón Laureano burst onto the scene with the Oakland Athletics. A mid-level prospect with the Astros, the strength of their big league outfield and the depth of their farm system pushed him out of the picture in Houston. He was traded to Oakland for a pittance in the fall of 2017 and made his major league debut on August 3. Just a week into his time in the majors, he made The Throw. You probably remember this one:

He hasn’t stopped throwing runners out with his rocket arm.

He’s made four more outfield assists since the above tweet was posted, giving him 15 across 115 career games in center field. Over the past two years, he’s second in the majors in outfield assists behind Teoscar Hernández, who has almost 400 more innings in the field than Laureano. The advanced defensive metrics back up what all those assists tell us. Since the beginning of 2018, he’s sixth in the majors in UZR’s ARM component and seventh in DRS’s rARM component. And remember, he didn’t make his major league debut until well into last season, so he’s had far fewer innings to accumulate positive marks for his throws. 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 Dull, Tim Mayza, and Spencer Turnbull — on how they learned and developed their sliders.

———

Ryan Dull, Oakland A’s

“I started messing around with a slider my junior year of college. We happened to have some scouts over — it was a scout-day — and they talked to my coach about my curveball. They said I would best benefit by getting rid of it altogether, and throwing a slider. The day after that, I got together with the guy on our team who had the best slider, and started working on one. We worked on it every day.

“I actually started throwing it with a softball at first. My pitching coach in college, Aaron Rembert, had me do that. It helps give you a feel of how you get on top, and around, it. It won’t move like it would if it were a baseball, but you’ll be able to see the spin. You throw five to ten [pitches] with a softball, then take a baseball, which will give you the break you want. Read the rest of this entry »

It remains one of the game’s unsolved mysteries. A batter hits a pop-up near the mound and the person closest to it — a professional athlete wearing a glove — isn’t expected to catch the ball. Moreover, he’s not supposed to catch the ball. That job belongs to any one of several teammates, all of whom has traversed a greater distance. As often as not they’re climbing a slope to get under the descending baseball.

Chaos can ensue as the infielders and the catcher converge. The multiple “I’ve got its,” are drowned out by crowd noise and suddenly what should be a routine out becomes an adventure. We’ve all seen it. A bumper-car-like collision occurs and the catch is made clumsily… or not at all.

Just last week, Red Sox right-hander Rick Porcello was charged with an error when he failed to catch a pop up in front of the mound. Not because of ineptitude, but rather because he was veritably mugged by his catcher as the ball was about to arrive comfortably in his glove.

Why aren’t pitchers expected to handle simple pop-ups? They’re perfectly capable, so it makes sense that they should be catching them. Right?

“I don’t know why, and yes, they should be,’ said Seattle’s Perry Hill, whom many consider the game’s best infield instructor. “They’re on on the field of play when the ball is in play, so they should be able to make a play. It’s practiced in spring training. That little short pop-up that nobody can get to. The third baseman is playing way back. The first baseman is way back. The pitcher is the closest guy to the ball. He’ll catch that ball.”

Scott Servais sees it somewhat differently than his first base coach. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the chart that got me interested in what Marcus Semien is up to:

It’s the last two columns that should grab your attention. Semien is walking nearly two-thirds more often this year than he’s ever walked before, and striking out less, too. Those are good things for hitters to do, and they’ve resulted in a 24-point increase in Semien’s wOBA (.335) compared to what had been his career mark (.311). If that figure holds, it will be the best of Semien’s career by 20 points.

Semien has experienced stretches of similar success before. For a brief period at the beginning of the 2017 season, before being put out of commission by a wrist injury, Semien was walking nearly 17% of the time — but also striking out in something like 27% of his plate appearances. He brought that number down beginning in early 2018, to something like its current levels, but saw his walk rate drop back down below 5% as he did so. Not until the early part of this 2019 season have we seen a Semien who is both walking a lot and not striking out that much:

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 — Jalen Beeks, Dallas Braden, and John Means— on how they learned and developed their changeups.

———

Jalen Beeks, Tampa Bay Rays

“I had a changeup in high school, but it wasn’t very good. When I got to college, I changed the grip; I moved my pinky finger down. It’s pretty much a circle change. I grip it hard and think about it almost like a fastball. I don’t pronate. No one taught it to me. I just threw it one day and it worked. You have to tinker. You have to figure out what works for you.

“It’s gotten better over the last year. I think that’s mainly from my mechanics having changed a little bit. I use my legs more, and have shortened my arm action. I’m not so tall on the mound now. I’m activating my legs more, by getting into more of a squat position. And like I said, I think fastball. I throw it as hard as I can. My average fastball is around 92 [mph] and my changeup is around 88. Read the rest of this entry »

When baseball fans quibble with sabermetrics, one of the arguments I hear is, “If we can already predict everything that will happen, then why isn’t baseball just played on a computer?” It’s a funny stance to me for two reasons. First, statistics can’t predict everything; they can only tell you the odds of an event occurring. And, second, the randomness of baseball — and, really, sports in general — is something that even the most devout statisticians can marvel at.

Mike Fiers threw the second no-hitter of his career last week. Rachael McDaniel did a brilliant job of explaining how unlikely it was for Fiers, the individual, to have the fortunate of joining the group of 35 pitchers to throw two no-hitters in the big leagues. I just want to borrow a few lines from McDaniel’s prose, but you should really read the whole thing. It’s great:

That’s the wonderful thing about pitching achievements, the no-hitter and the perfect game. With their length and intensity, with the level of collaboration and the sprinkling of luck that is necessary to sustain that nine-inning walk along the knife’s edge, there is so much room for serendipity. In the annals of the no-hitter, you can just as easily find the greatest of all time proving why they’re the greatest as you can a roster of unlikely heroes — rookies, journeymen, washed-up veterans — who, for those few hours, reach out and find perfection.

I want to take a second crack of explaining how unlikely Fiers’ second no-hitter was, but with a different angle: math. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, Mike Fiers threw his second no-hitter. He no-hit the Reds on 131 pitches, with three batters reaching against him on two walks and an error. It was the 300th no-hitter in major league history, and Fiers became the 35th pitcher in major league history to throw multiple no-hitters.

“You almost get emotional,” he said after the game.

***

The lights were out. Three panels of them out of five on the tower were non-functioning, looming barren above left field at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Where usually there were rows of bright lights, a series of illuminations hanging above the names of Jackson, Henderson, Eckersley, there were instead the unimpressive shadows of bare bulbs.

The problem was unanticipated, and clearly not easily fixed. I was watching when the lights went out at Dodger Stadium last year, and that technical issue certainly looked more impressive — one moment I saw a ballpark where a baseball game was happening; the next, a panicky wave of cell phone flashlights cresting a sea of darkness. But while play resumed for the Dodgers in just 20 minutes, it took almost two hours for the scheduled game between the Reds and the A’s to begin. Fifteen more minutes and the game wouldn’t have happened at all. Even as Fiers took the field to begin warming up, the lights still flickered, unsure. Read the rest of this entry »

Matt Chapman is starting to come into his own as a hitter. Known primarily for his defense — he won a Gold Glove last year in his first full big-league season — the 26-year-old third baseman is slashing .295/.384/.597. He leads the Oakland A’s in all three of those categories, while his nine home runs rank second, behind Khris “Mr. .247” Davis. Moreover, he’s displaying far better discipline than he did a year ago. Along with upping his walk rate, Chapman has nearly halved his K rate. Slowly but surely, he’s becoming an offensive force.

Chapman talked about his offensive approach, which includes looking for pitches middle, middle-away, when the A’s visited Fenway Park last week.

David Laurila: I start a lot of interviews with this question: Do you consider hitting to be more of an art, or more of a science?

Matt Chapman: “Baseball, in general, is kind of like a fine line. So it’s a little bit of both. It’s an art in the sense that everybody is unique — everybody has the things that work for them — and you have to let your natural ability take over. But then there are the mechanics and the numbers. That’s the science part of it. Both are important. You can’t live and die with either.

“For me, the science part is that I see little tiny things in my swing, on video, that need to be mechanically sound. When I’m not feeling as good as maybe I should, I’ll go to the film. I don’t dissect every little thing, but there are a few things I look at. Am I on time? Am I getting in the right hitting position? Sometimes when I struggle, it’s because I’m getting a little too pull-happy. So, is my barrel up, or am I opening up and my barrel is dropping?”

Laurila: Are you looking at more video, and data, than in the past? 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 — Wade LeBlanc, Michael Lorenzen, and Lou Trivino — on how they learned and developed their cutters.

———

Wade LeBlanc, Seattle Mariners

“I learned a cutter in 2009. I taught myself. That was after I got my brains beat in, and got sent back to Triple-A. I figured it was my last shot. If I was going to make anything out of this career, I was going to have to find something that worked.

“My fear about throwing cutters, or sliders, was always arm issues. I’ve never actually had an arm issue, but that was the fear. I didn’t want to throw something that could cause some problems with my arm, so I’d held off. But at that point, I was on my last legs. It was either figure something out, or go home. Read the rest of this entry »

Grayson Greiner hit the first home run of his brief big-league career two weeks ago Friday. He then banged out number-two the following Tuesday. What did the blasts have in common? I asked the Detroit Tigers catcher that very question a day after the second dinger.

“They were similar pitches,” Greiner told me. “They were kind of down in the zone, and middle-in-ish. Both fastballs. One was off Ryan Burr, a right-hander for the White Sox, and yesterday’s was off Chris Sale. The one off the righty was on a 2-2 count, and the one off Sale was 1-1 count. I think the counts being even is a reason they were both home runs. I wasn’t sure what was coming, and that made me stay back a little bit longer, instead of getting out front. I was in a good, strong hitting position.”

Greiner and Burr know each other, having played summer ball together when they were collegians. Baseball friendships being what they are, Greiner received a text after the April 19 game saying, ‘Congrats on the first homer. I wish it wasn’t off of me.’ He didn’t hear from Sale after taking him deep. “He probably doesn’t know who I am,” was Greiner’s guess as to why that didn’t happen.

The fact that Sale is Sale, and Fenway is Fenway, made Greiner’s second-ever home run even more meaningful than his first. Read the rest of this entry »