One of the most notable changes in baseball over the last few years has been the increased emphasis on defensive positioning. The rise of data has helped coaches identify where the ball is likely going to go before it goes there, and teams have put a lot of effort into making sure they have a defender in the right place at the right time.

Which is why the Rangers first run against David Price yesterday was a little jarring. You can watch the play, which resulted in a Delino Deshields RBI single, in the highlight below.

Ryan Goins — one of the best defensive second baseman in baseball, it should be said — is left standing helplessly near the second base bag as the ball hit by Deshields rolls into the outfield, right past the area where a second baseman is normally positioned. Here’s an image of his position as the ball passed by him.

According to John Lott of the National Post, the Blue Jays were running a “back-pick” on this play, in which Goins would sneak over to the second base bag after the pitch was delivered in order to receive a throw down from catcher Russell Martin, hoping to catch the runner — Rougned Odor, in this case — off the bag for an out. And there is some merit to trying to take advantage of Odor’s baserunning, because in his brief Major League career, he’s been pretty terrible at it.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

Let’s just be real here and leave the analysis aside for a moment: it’s difficult to picture the Blue Jays losing. They got smoked yesterday, but only after clinching their division, so their lineup was missing its starters. That can be forgiven. Their overall run differential is better than second place by nearly 100. They have baseball’s best record since the All-Star break. Since beginning the little flurry with the Troy Tulowitzki trade, the Jays have won three-quarters of the time, and not even the Cubs have been able to keep up. Aggressiveness at the deadline took care of seemingly all the team’s problems, and now Marcus Stroman is back and starting and looking terrific, and this has been present the whole year:

The Jays are what’s been classically defined as “stupid-good,” one of the few teams in the American League playing like it ought to. It’s no mystery why they’ve succeeded, and now that a berth in the first round has been clinched, it’s at last time to look ahead. The Blue Jays feel like a super team. Especially given how they’ve played the last few months. So, what’s historically happened with teams like this?

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Last week, I addressed the Cy Young battle in the senior circuit and titled it “The NL Cy Young Showdown.” This time, it’s the AL’s turn — and “discussion” (as opposed to “showdown”) seems to be the proper way to characterize it. It’s been a low-key pitching season, comparatively, in the AL, with no one posting an ERA near Zack Greinke‘s, or pitching no-hitters or engaging in zany second-half shenanigans like Jake Arrieta. In fact, a general consensus seems to be building that the award is David Price’s to lose. Today, let’s have a full discussion, including utilization of batted-ball data, about the AL Cy Young and its three likely frontrunners, Price, Chris Sale and Dallas Keuchel.

Price, who turned 30 in late August, is the only one of the three with a Cy (2012) on his mantle, though he hasn’t finished above sixth in the annual voting since then. Sale has come progressively closer in the voting, checking in at sixth, fifth and third in the last three seasons, while this will be the first time on a ballot for Keuchel, 2015’s foremost pitching breakthrough.

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Marcus Stroman isn’t David Price. Maybe, if Stroman had been healthy all year, the Jays wouldn’t have gotten Price at the deadline, so Stroman would be their No. 1, but that isn’t how things went, so Price is No. 1, and Stroman’s looking to be No. 2. Stroman himself would happily concede that Price is on another level, but then, just about every World Series-winning team ever has needed more than one starting pitcher, and this is where Stroman becomes important. It’s a minor miracle to just see Stroman already back on the field, but his own focus is on starting and helping. It’s gone beyond just getting healthy. And if Wednesday’s any indication, Stroman’s rounding into top form with the playoffs coming up.

Stroman has made three big-league starts since returning, pushing his pitch count close to 100. His first start came in New York, and he managed a half-decent five innings. Wednesday, he faced the Yankees again, only this time in Toronto, and he worked his way through seven, allowing no runs while striking out five. In easily the biggest game of his life, Stroman rose to the occasion, reducing any doubts he might not be ready to help. And it’s interesting to note just how Stroman looked. Two times out of three, Stroman has faced the Yankees. And the second time, owing in part to Stroman’s broad repertoire, the hitters saw a different pitcher.

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The Blue Jays acquired David Price expecting him to be an ace, and to this point he’s been exactly as advertised. While teams elsewhere are struggling to straighten out their deadline acquisitions, Price has allowed just 15 runs in 10 starts with Toronto. His surface numbers are terrific, and his more advanced numbers are terrific, and when everything agrees that a guy is terrific, he’s probably terrific. The Blue Jays are getting what they paid for.

Significantly, in just over a month and a half, Price has already pitched against the Yankees four times. Three of those games he won, and in the one he didn’t, he left with a 3-1 lead. Monday was Price’s latest win over New York, and he found himself in the most trouble in the third inning. With one out and the bases loaded, Price began his highest-leverage plate appearance of the evening, opposite Alex Rodriguez.

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Barry Zito is coming back! Zito, who hasn’t thrown a pitch in the majors since 2013, has been called up from Triple-A by the A’s. He’ll initially work out of the bullpen — which makes sense because what bullpen doesn’t need an old guy with no command who throws really slow? — but the A’s are so out of playoff contention they may as well clone an entire Zito army and deploy it in relief. “Looks like Clone Zito doesn’t have it tonight, and here’s Bob Melvin to make a change. He’s signaling for the left-hander, and here comes Clone Zito trolling in from the pen. This pitching change is sponsored by Firestone tires, by Zippo lighters, and by Shell Gasoline.”

I mention that so I can mention this: I wonder if Barry Zito can throw the slowest fastball this season? Zito is renowned for his fastball velocity like Metallica is renowned for their depth and subtlety. Back in 2007, Zito’s fastball reached 93 mph, but over the years he lost velocity like a ship made of chicken wire loses buoyancy. In his most recent season, 2013, his four-seamer averaged 82.6 mph with a high of 85.6 mph and a low of…

[Drum roll]

…

[More drum roll]

…

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While working on something Erasmo Ramirez said — that his slider was always in the zone anyway, so he should probably use it to steal strikes rather than for swinging strikes — it became obvious that breaking pitches are much less effective in the zone than out when it comes to swinging strikes. Curves, in particular, are much better outside the zone. You get about one third of the whiffs on a curve in the zone as you do outside of the zone.

Separately, I’m working on a piece for The Hardball Times Annual about command. In it, a few pitchers talk about the difficulty of commanding breaking pitches. “Nobody throws anything that’s truly straight,” is how Trevor Bauer put it.

While sorting the in and out of zone whiff rates, and thinking about command, it came to me that the two are related. Maybe that’s a duh, but a big part of quantifying command is the problem of breaking balls and changeups and their movement. A breaking ball in the zone may often be a hung breaking ball, which contributes to the lower whiff rates.

Let’s take a look at the pitchers that have the most disparate results on their non fastballs inside and outside the zone first, and then try to find a way to spot these pitchers by movement.

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Around little-league parks, and even on the back fields of certain schools and organizations, you might hear a common refrain from the batting cages. “Chop wood, chop wood,” is how Bryce Harper mimics the coaches he’s heard before. The idea is that a quick, direct path to the baseball — like an ax chop — is the best way to get quickly to the ball and create the backspin that fuels the power.

Turns out, pretty much all of that is wrong.

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Two seasons ago, I ranked the job security of each general manager and listed GM prospects. I think I did a pretty good job with both lists given what we knew at the time, and may do it again as Opening Day 2016 closes in. We’ve had less executive movement in the last few off-seasons than usual and it looks like the regression is happening this year, with four GM jobs currently open and a likely fifth coming soon. This seemed like a good time to cover each of the situations in flux and target some possible changes in the near future, along with some names to keep in mind as candidates to fill these openings.

The Open GM Spots
We have two teams without a top baseball decision-making executive, in Seattle and Milwaukee:

Mariners
The Mariners moved on from (now former) GM Jack Zduriencik recently, a long-rumored move that club president Kevin Mather admitted he waited too long to execute. Mather has said they’re looking for a replacement sooner than later (likely eliminating execs from playoff teams), with GM experience (eliminating most of the GM prospects you’ll see below), and that the team doesn’t require a rebuild (meaning a shorter leash and higher expectations from day one). This should prove to narrow the pool of candidates a good bit, but this is still seen as the best of the currently open jobs.

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So, I’m browsing around Twitter. I’m not looking for anything in particular, but then something catches my eye. It isn’t a tweet — it’s a trend, based on a series of tweets, happening somewhere outside of my circle. You know how trends work. The thing I saw Tuesday evening:

I’m not unaccustomed to seeing baseball topics pop up over there. They tend to mirror the ongoing action, and sometimes the trends are accompanied by featured links to stories. This one linked to an article from Jeff Blair. The teaser is something made just for me: It suggests a change in performance, following a change in approach. I’m a total sucker for that genre. I’m fascinated by stories of baseball players who work hard to make themselves better. What was throwing me in this case was the name. I consider myself prepared for most players to improve.

This is about Ryan Goins.

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