The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2015 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
Wherever Gary Sheffield went, he made noise, both with his bat and his voice. For the better part of two decades, he ranked among the game’s most dangerous hitters, a slugger with a keen batting eye and a penchant for contact that belied his quick, violent swing. For even longer than that, he was one of the game’s most outspoken players, unafraid to speak up when he felt he was being wronged and unwilling to endure a situation that wasn’t to his liking. He was a polarizing player, and hardly one for the faint of heart.
At the plate, Sheffield was viscerally impressive like few others. With his bat twitching back and forth like the tail of a tiger waiting to pounce, he was pure menace in the batter’s box. He won a batting title, launched over 500 home runs — he had 14 seasons with at least 20 and eight with at least 30 — and put many a third base coach in peril with some of the most terrifying foul balls anyone has ever seen. For as violent as his swing may have been, it was hardly wild; not until his late 30s did he strike out more than 80 times in a season, and in his prime, he walked far more often than he struck out. Read the rest of this entry »
The Braves have taken a heterodox approach to building a bullpen in recent years. Sometimes they apply the overall team strategy of strongly preferring players with ties to Georgia, like Collin McHugh and former Brave Will Smith. Sometimes they take fliers on players looking to reinvigorate their careers, like Kirby Yates and Nick Anderson. Sometimes they fleece the Angels for Raisel Iglesias, or sign a good closer to a short-term deal like Kenley Jansen, or draft and develop an A.J. Minter. Heck, sometimes they just call Jesse Chavez, and he magically appears in the bullpen.
This week, they’re trying a new tack, making a trade to shore up their already-solid relief corps. It wasn’t the biggest transaction of the week or anywhere near it, but every transaction deserves a little analysis. Let’s talk Braves and Tigers. Let’s talk Joe Jiménez, Justyn-Henry Malloy, and Jake Higginbotham:
Jiménez is a walking advertisement for reliever volatility. Depending on the year, he’s been either excellent or near-unplayable. His true talent level likely lies somewhere in between his superlative 2022, when he struck out a third of opposing batters to go with pinpoint control, and his ’21, when he ran a 16.7% walk rate and an ERA approaching 6.00. Sure, relievers are volatile, but Jiménez has been really volatile. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. It was initially written for The Cooperstown Casebook, published in 2017 by Thomas Dunne Books, and subsequently adapted for SI.com and then FanGraphs. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
It happened so quickly. Freshly anointed the game’s top prospect by Baseball America in the spring of 1996, the soon-to-be-19-year-old Andruw Jones was sent to play for the Durham Bulls, the Braves’ High-A affiliate. By mid-August, he blazed through the Carolina League, the Double-A Southern League, and the Triple-A International League, then debuted for the defending world champions. By October 20, with just 31 regular-season games under his belt, he was a household name, having become the youngest player ever to homer in a World Series game, breaking Mickey Mantle’s record — and doing so twice at Yankee Stadium to boot.
Jones was no flash in the pan. The Braves didn’t win the 1996 World Series, and he didn’t win the ’97 NL Rookie of the Year award, but along with Chipper Jones (no relation) and the big three of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz, he became a pillar of a franchise that won a remarkable 14 NL East titles from 1991 to 2005 (all but the 1994 strike season). From 1998 to 2007, Jones won 10 straight Gold Gloves, more than any center fielder except Willie Mays.
By the end of 2006, Jones had tallied 342 homers and 1,556 hits. He looked bound for a berth in Cooperstown, but after a subpar final season in Atlanta and a departure for Los Angeles in free agency, he fell apart so completely that the Dodgers bought out his contract, a rarity in baseball. He spent the next four years with three different teams before heading to Japan at age 35, and while he hoped for a return to the majors, he couldn’t find a deal to his liking after either the 2014 or ’15 seasons. He retired before his 39th birthday, and thanks to his rapid descent, he barely survived his first two years on the Hall of Fame ballot, with shares of 7.3% and 7.5%. Over the past three cycles, he’s more than quintupled that support, jumping to 19.4%, 33.9%, and 41.4%, a point where eventual election, either by the writers or a small committee, becomes a legitimate possibility. With five years of eligibility remaining, he still has a chance to get to 75% from the writers. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2023 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2016 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.
Billy Wagner was the ultimate underdog. Undersized and from both a broken home and an impoverished rural background, he channeled his frustrations into throwing incredibly hard — with his left hand, despite being a natural righty, for he broke his right arm twice as a child. Scouts overlooked him because he wasn’t anywhere close to six feet tall, but they couldn’t disregard his dominance over collegiate hitters using a mid-90s fastball. The Astros made him a first-round pick, and once he was converted to a relief role, his velocity went even higher.
Thanks to outstanding lower-body strength, coordination, and extraordinary range of motion, the 5-foot-10 Wagner was able to reach 100 mph with consistency — 159 times in 2003, according to The Bill James Handbook. Using a hard slider learned from teammate Brad Lidge, he kept blowing the ball by hitters into his late 30s to such an extent that he owns the record for the highest strikeout rate of any pitcher with at least 800 innings. He was still dominant when he walked away from the game following the 2010 season, fresh off posting a career-best ERA. Read the rest of this entry »
It wasn’t too long ago that it was a delightful novelty when position players pitched. When Casper Wells came in from the outfield to chuck batting practice fastballs at the plate, it signified that the game had gone into a zone of silliness. Either the game was such a blowout there was nothing to be gained by taking it seriously, or it had gone on so long that both teams had run out of pitchers. In the latter case, that usually happened well after midnight, with all the slap-happy antics exhausted people tend to get up to.
But seeing a position player on the mound is no longer cause for giddiness and mirth. It’s almost commonplace; so much so that MLB had to institute a rule prohibiting position players from pitching in games where the score is closer than seven runs. Like a Foster the People song, the position player pitching got overexposed and lost its luster. What was once a reason to turn a game on is now a signal that you might as well turn it off.
Why are so many position players pitching nowadays? Well, there’s the serious answer, which has to do with bullpen construction and the proliferation of the max-effort relief pitcher. And then there’s the truth, which is that in baseball, unlike curling, it’s considered indecorous to concede a game you’re going to lose. That’s what the position player pitching usually means now: The game is out of reach, so let’s just get it over with, ideally with as little expenditure of time and effort as is practicable. Read the rest of this entry »
How do you explain a fall in performance from a superstar player in their age-24 season? It’s hard to make any concrete conclusions, but there are always certain observations that can help us understand what happened, and when it comes to Ronald Acuña Jr., many of us are eager to know. In the first four seasons of his career, he was undeniably one of the best players in baseball, and in the last two, albeit both shortened for different reasons, his power had begun to take off. In 2020 and ’21, before he tore his ACL, he maintained an ISO above .300.
Oh yeah, about that ACL. It’s not a common injury in baseball, so we don’t have much history to go off, but there is no denying its impact on Acuña’s swing and athleticism. Depending on the stage of your career and sport you play, an ACL tear can impact you differently. When it came to Acuña, a special athlete, I thought there would be an immediate bounce back. Perhaps that was an unfair assessment. This is a major injury for such an explosive player, and it’s understandable that it would take time to recover and get the necessary level of proprioception back. That’s not to say he wasn’t successful in 2022; he put up three months with a 130 wRC+ or better and ended at 114 overall. But that isn’t close to his pre-2022 career mark of 140. I’m confident he can get back to that point. How? He’ll have to reignite his ability to keep the ball off the ground and in the air.
Sorry to simplify things so much. It’s a personal pet peeve of mine to say a hitter just needs to stop hitting so many groundballs; it’s such an obvious suggestion for any hitter or swing type. But it’s the case here. From 2019 to ’21, Acuña didn’t have a ground ball rate above 38%; in ’22, that figure skyrocketed to 47.7%. That was a career high, 5.4 percentage points higher than his rookie season. Even in the months where he was stellar, it wasn’t because he returned to his previous batted ball profile; he only had one month all year with a groundball rate under 42%. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article is part of my ongoing look at the candidates on the 2023 Contemporary Baseball Era Committee ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been expanded and updated. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, use the tool above. An introduction to JAWS can be found here.
It took four position changes — from catcher to first base, then left field, right field, and finally center field — and parts of five major league seasons for the Braves to figure out where the 6-foot-4 Dale Murphy fit. Once they did, they had themselves a franchise centerpiece, a wholesome, milk-drinking superstar whom Sports Illustrated profiled for its July 4, 1983 cover story by proclaiming, “Murphy’s Law is Nice Guys Finish First.”
The title was a reference to the slugger helping the Braves to an NL West title the previous year, their lone playoff appearance during the 1970-90 stretch. “Here’s a guy who doesn’t drink, smoke, chew or cuss,” wrote SI’s Steve Wulf. “Here’s a guy who has time for everyone, a guy who’s slow to anger and eager to please, a guy whose agent’s name is Church. His favorite movie is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. He’s a wonderful ballplayer.” Let the record show that Wulf did unearth some dirt on Murphy, noting that he once got a speeding ticket for doing 35 in a 25-mph zone… while running late to speak to a church group.
Murphy won the first of his back-to-back MVP awards in 1982 as well as the first of his five consecutive Gold Gloves, and made his second of seven All-Star teams. He would spend most of the 1980s as one of the game’s best players. Alas, knee problems turned him into a shadow of the player he once was while he was still in his early 30s, and he played his final game in the majors at age 37. Read the rest of this entry »
Tuesday’s 40-man roster deadline led to the usual squall of transaction activity, with teams turning over portions of their rosters in an effort to make room for the incoming crop of young rookies. Often, teams with an overflow of viable big leaguers will try to get back what they can for some of those players via trade, but because we’re talking about guys straddling the line between major league viability and Triple-A, those trades tend not to be big enough to warrant an entire post. Over the next few days, I’ll endeavor to cover and analyze the moves made by each team, division by division. Readers can view this as the start of list season, as the players covered in this miniseries tend to be prospects who will get big league time in the next year. I’ll spend more time discussing players who I think need scouting updates or who I haven’t written about in the past. If you want additional detail on some of the more famous names you find below, pop over to The Board for a more thorough report.
The Future Value grades littered throughout these posts may be different than those on the 2022 in-season prospect lists on The Board to reflect my updated opinions, and may be subject to change during the offseason. New to my thinking on this subject and wondering what the FVs mean? Here’s a quick rundown. Note that because we’re talking about close-to-the-majors prospects across this entire exercise, the time and risk component is less present here and these FVs are what I think the players are right now. Read the rest of this entry »
Nick Anderson has had a hell of a baseball career. If you haven’t already heard his story, allow me to enlighten you. Anderson played Division II baseball for three years at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota before transferring to an NAIA school, Mayville State University, for his senior year. Despite being drafted by the Brewers in the 32nd round of the 2012 draft, he opted to play independent league baseball for three years. From 2015-18, he made his way up the Twins’ minor league ladder, then was traded to the Marlins that winter. Finally, he made his major league debut as a 28-year-old in 2019. His career had already been a wild ride.
Is it surprising that a player like Anderson found himself on the Tampa Bay Rays? It shouldn’t be! They saw something in him, as they often do, and acquired him and Trevor Richards at the 2019 trade deadline while trading away a talented prospect in Jesús Sánchez and another reliever in Ryne Stanek. Anderson’s performance in the first half of the season had been impressive, but upon his arrival in Tampa in August, he got even better. In 21.1 innings, he struck out 52.6% of the batters he faced, only surrendered five runs, and pitched to a 1.62 FIP. That’s pure dominance.
Anderson saw similar success in the shortened 2020 season, posting a 1.35 FIP in 16.1 innings. But since then, he has only thrown six big league innings due to a partially torn UCL in 2021 and then a bumpy recovery in the minors this season after opting for a UCL brace procedure rather than Tommy John surgery. On top of that, he dealt with plantar fasciitis. If you ever experienced that, you know that it feels like the bottom of your foot is ripping in half every time you take a step. Anyways, Anderson has gotten another opportunity, this time with the Atlanta Braves.
Right-handed reliever Nick Anderson and the Atlanta Braves are in agreement on a major league contract, sources tell ESPN. The 32-year-old Anderson is on a split deal that will pay $875,000 if he’s in the big leagues and $180,000 in the minors. He spent four years with Tampa Bay.
If he does indeed end up with the big league club, he’ll have the chance to re-establish himself as one of the more lethal relievers in the game. How likely he is to do so, however, is unclear. Historically, the road back from a torn or partially torn UCL without receiving Tommy John surgery hasn’t been a great one. That doesn’t mean Anderson won’t buck the trend, but it does leave me skeptical that he can return to his previous form.
If there is a path back to success, it will need to include recovering his four-seam fastball’s shape and maybe a tick of velocity. Anderson’s mechanics fluctuated as he dealt with injuries, and it led to him releasing the baseball differently than he did during his dominant 2019-20 stretch. Below is a table of the qualities that changed between 2019 and ’21, and the resulting performance:
Nick Anderson Four-Seam Release
Year
Vertical Release Point
Horizontal Release Point
Extension
wOBA
RV/100
2019
6.56
-0.7
5.9
.331
-0.4
2020
6.36
-0.68
6.4
.139
-3.6
2021
6.65
-0.82
5.9
.418
0.4
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
Anderson’s fastball was at its best when he was getting an additional half inch of extension and releasing from a lower arm slot. That isn’t all that surprising. He doesn’t have overwhelming spin or velocity, so having a release point that gave him a flatter entry into the zone was crucial for his success. Being a 6-foot-4 person with a loopy arm swing made Anderson tough to read and allowed his fastball to play up when he was able to drive his release further toward home plate. Because of the drop in his release and extension, he also lost ride on his fastball. Basically, it all fell apart.
Now, he’s left in a tough situation. Did his increase in extension cause his elbow issues, or did the elbow issues come first and lead to his fastball shape and movement deteriorating due to a suboptimal mechanical change? It’s impossible to say exactly, but what we can do is look at his mechanics and try to point to specific movements other than the arm swing itself that can explain the drop in release point and extension. I’ll start with two videos from 2020. The first is from August 7, and the second is from August 12:
Next, let’s look at two videos from 2021. The first is from September 19, and the second is from September 26:
To me, it doesn’t even require slow motion video to see what changed in Anderson’s mechanics. His shin angle is almost dead at 90 degrees (perpendicular to the ground) in 2020. That is a perfect starting point to keep your lower half anchored in the ground while creating hip and shoulder separation. He is then able to strongly plant in the ground and get to full knee extension right when he releases the ball. The stronger your base, the more control you have in your hips as you rotate down the mound. You can’t get down the mound into a low release point without holding your base well. If you don’t, it’ll look something like Anderson’s struggles in 2021.
During his brief 2021 stint, Anderson couldn’t find steady mechanics. I watched all of his appearances, and whether it was in the setup of the hands or the feet, they all had something slightly different. On September 19, he used a more aggressive leg kick, which led to him getting down the mound too quickly. Because of that, he reached full front knee extension earlier than in 2020. This led to him releasing the ball higher and earlier. It was a decent location, but that doesn’t mean the process was optimal.
He must have felt something was off because a week later he changed his hand setup, but it didn’t do him any good. The two things that are telling to me were his reciprocal movement to releasing the ball, and his upper back posture. In 2020, he had a controlled kickback that went right back through the center of his body as he stood on one leg after delivering the pitch while swinging his right foot around. In 2021, he delivered the ball with his upper back bending a bit too much (you can see it on the ripples of his jersey across his name), which led to his arm and right leg kicking up and back instead of towards his center of mass.
Again, it’s hard to say exactly why these changes occurred, but regardless of the cause, it’s clear Anderson was compensating. If he can return to something closer to his 2020 mechanics, then perhaps he can better optimize his fastball shape to once again play with his curveball and be a productive pitcher for the Braves. The one thing I still worry about is whether the mechanics that gave him better extension and release were unsustainable for his body. If that’s the case, it might be unrealistic to expect the velocity, mechanics, and shape to all return without re-injury. I know I’ve caveated this multiple times, but there is reason to believe Anderson is a resilient fella. After all, he has overcome the odds time and again during his career. Why should he stop now?
The National League Rookie of the Year award was announced on Monday evening, with Michael Harris II of the Braves taking home the honor. Harris earned the hardware by collecting 22 of 30 first-place votes from the BBWAA writers, convincingly beating out teammate Spencer Strider, who only collected eight (and was left off one ballot completely), including mine.
Getting inappropriately annoyed with year-end awards — more specifically in 1995, the year Mo Vaughn beat Albert Belle in the AL and Dante Bichette confusingly finished second in the NL — was one of the things that got me reading Usenet. A high schooler at the time, I had little idea that it was the start of an astonishing career path. And even back then, I was frustrated that the writers who voted for these awards didn’t always make convincing arguments about their picks and, occasionally, offered no justifications at all. I still believe that this kind of transparency is crucial for the legitimacy of any type of award. This is ostensibly an expert panel — if it’s not, there’s no purpose for the award to exist — and as such, a secret ballot is not appropriate the way I believe it is for, say, a presidential or parliamentary election.
In my previous Rookie of the Year ballots, I gave my first-place votes to Corey Seager, Pete Alonso, and Trevor Rogers. The last one basically ruined my social media for a week. I had expected more writers to pick Jonathan India, but I felt (and still do) that Rogers had a slightly stronger case for the award. While it wouldn’t have changed my vote, I freely admit that I would have preferred to be one of three or five Rogers voters rather than end up being alone!
