No player wants to suffer a significant, season-ending injury like Jung Hoo Lee did last May, especially in their rookie year. But when players do find themselves in that situation, they can at least use the time to reflect on their performance and make adjustments that they think will improve their game upon their return. Despite it being early in the season, it seems that is exactly what Lee has done.
The Giants center fielder’s offensive improvements warrant a look under the hood to see exactly what he has changed, because right now, he seems like a completely different player from the one we saw last year. So far this season, Lee is sporting a 192 wRC+, a .394 xwOBA (86th percentile), a 43.1% sweet-spot rate (87th percentile), and a .446 xwOBACON. Those are all big improvements compared to his limited 2024 sample. Read the rest of this entry »
Have you seen all the technological advances taking over pitching in recent years? High-speed cameras, pitching labs, weighted ball training, wind tunnels – maybe the reason we haven’t sent anyone to the moon for decades is that we’re using all the technology to strike batters out instead. Clearly, the arms race (get it?) favors technological savvy and complicated, inscrutable mathematical modeling.
Here’s a counterpoint, though: Maybe you should just throw a fastball and a slider and laugh as batters flail at both. Case in point: Randy Rodríguez has been the best reliever in baseball this year, and there’s nothing fancy about his game. He throws a 98-mph fastball. He throws a tight slider. That’s it – and that’s really all he needs anyway. Through eight appearances this year, he has 13 strikeouts, zero walks, and zero runs allowed.
Oh, two paragraphs don’t make an article? Well then, I guess we should expand on everything a bit. First, his backstory: Rodríguez signed with the Giants in 2017 out of the Dominican Republic and then slowly climbed the minor league ranks. He was a reliever right from the jump, with only occasional dalliances with short-burst starts, and he got a taste of Triple-A in 2022, where he got shelled. He tried it again in 2023 with better results, and by 2024 he looked like he belonged. That was his first year in the upper minors with a single-digit walk rate, and that’s all the Giants were waiting for; they called him up midseason and plugged him into the bullpen. Read the rest of this entry »
For the past half decade, Logan Webb has been one of the game’s premier starters. He churns out 30-start seasons with ERAs in the 3s like clockwork; that’s almost exactly his seasonal average since switching to a full-time sinkerballer in 2021. In that span, he’s averaging 4.4 WAR per year, and he’s topped 200 innings in each of the past two seasons. This year, he’s atop the leaderboards again, with a 2.63 ERA and 2.25 FIP through four starts. But there’s something new to see here, and it’s a change I thought Webb would make for years before he actually did, so I think an updated look is in order.
Webb’s approach was simple and yet effective. He threw three pitches to righties: sinker, sweeper, changeup. Against lefties, he threw fewer sweepers and more changeups, and he also mixed in a few four-seamers in lieu of sinkers. For the most part, though, he alternated his three best pitches, weighted to suit the batter he was facing. Here’s a great graphic, courtesy of Baseball Savant’s player pages, that shows Webb’s movement profile. I picked 2023 for reasons that will become obvious shortly:
This shows a few things about Webb’s game in one image. His sinker and changeup move very differently from the league-average versions of those pitches. His four-seamer, rarely thrown, is effective not because of inherent shape, but because it’s different from his primary fastball. His sweeper is the only thing he throws that breaks glove side, and it breaks that way by quite a lot. If you’re facing Webb, you’re either going to see something that tails hard arm side (sinker or changeup) or something that shoots hard glove side (sweeper). It’s like facing Clay Holmes or Blake Treinen for 100 pitches at a time. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) In Baseball This Week. I was at a wedding this past weekend, a generally fun event for a baseball writer. That’s because strangers ask me what I do, and then I get to say, “I’m a baseball writer.” That plays a lot better than, “I work in accounting/finance/tech,” no offense to any of you in those fine fields. But this weekend, someone inquired deeper. “Oh, like sabermetric stuff?” “Yeah! Kind of. Also I make GIFs of dumb and/or weird plays. And bunts, lots of bunts.” Yes, it’s a strange job being a baseball writer, but also a delightful one, and this week delivered whimsy and awe in equal amounts. So unlike guests milling around at a wedding, let’s get straight to the point – after the customary nod to Zach Lowe of The Ringer for the inspiration for this article format.
1. Not Reaching Home
The third time a runner was tagged out at the plate in Wednesday’s Cardinals-Pirates clash came at a pivotal moment. Locked in a scoreless tie in the bottom of the 11th, Pittsburgh finally looked like it would break through when Joey Bart singled to right. But, well:
That was a good throw by Lars Nootbaar and a clean catch by Pedro Pagés, and that combination turned a close play into a gimme. I mean, how often are you going to be safe when the catcher already has the ball in his glove and you’re here:
Landen Roupp leans heavily on his high-spin curveball, and Hayden Birdsong is a purveyor of the kick-change. Both pitches profile as plus, which is a big reason the right-handers are being counted on to provide quality innings in their respective roles with the San Francisco Giants this season; Roupp is in the rotation, while Birdsong is working out of the bullpen.
The early results have been promising. The 26-year-old Roupp, who is scheduled to make his second start on Tuesday night against the Cincinnati Reds, made his season debut on April 2 in a 6-3 Giants win over the Houston Astros. The start wasn’t great — he was removed with the bases loaded and nobody out in the fifth inning and was ultimately charged with three runs — but his eight strikeouts were encouraging. Seven of those strikeouts — and none of the four hits he allowed — came against his curveball. He threw his signature offering 34 times in his 83-pitch effort.
Birdsong has thrown four scoreless innings over two relief appearances. One of his four strikeouts has come courtesy of the kick-change, which he has thrown nine times out of 53 total pitches. The 23-year-old, likewise in his second big league season, has primarily attacked hitters with his high-octane heater (56.6% usage).
The stories behind Roupp’s hook and Birdsong’s changeup? I broached the subjects with the right-handers in Giants camps shortly before the start of the regular season.
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“I’ve thrown it my entire life,” Roupp said of his curveball. “All that’s really different is that I’m getting stronger with more mobility, and learning about the metrics. In college we didn’t have metrics. So, learning ways to make it move more and spin harder… learning and growing into my body has made it a lot better. For me, having confidence in it is the biggest thing.”
A 12th-round pick out of UNC-Wilmington in 2021, Roupp spun his curveball at 3,056 rpm in his April 2 outing, comfortably within the 2,900-3,100 range he’d described to me. Roupp also said that he “gets about 19 to 22 [inches] of horizontal [movement] and something like negative-11 vert” when he is executing properly. Timing is the key. When he’s out of sync with his delivery it doesn’t come out of his hand exactly as he’d like. Picking up a baseball, Roupp showed me his two-seam fastball grip, then rotated the ball just slightly. He explained that he throws his curveball just like his two-seamer, but “with a snap.”
Roupp’s curveball is “pretty slow,” averaging 77.4 mph since the start of last season. He said the speed differential between that and his fastball — his two-seamer averages 93.4 mph — is a big part of its effectiveness. As for its usage, he threw the curve 41% of the time in his first outing, which was slightly less frequently than he did last season (44.1%). With the caveat that one game is nowhere near a large enough sample size to determine what a pitcher’s usage rates will be, that dip was notable given that Roupp told me this spring that his plan was to throw his curve less often this season.
“Coming up through the minor leagues, they were telling me I was throwing it too much,” Roupp said. “That was more about developing my other pitches, though. But while I might throw it 40% of the time, I do think I’m going to lean back a little bit now that I have the changeup and the cutter. The changeup was new last year, and the cutter this year. I want to implement those and get people off my curveball so that it’s even more effective at the big league level.”
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“I have a high-vert heater with pretty good velo,” Birdsong said when asked to describe his full arsenal. “My curveball is the opposite of my fastball in that it’s just straight down; it’s negative-15 vert when it’s good. My slider is kind of in development and is more of a cutter. My changeup is just my changeup. I started throwing it last year, and it’s developed into one of my better pitches.”
That would of course be the kick-change. The right-hander supposedly learned it at Tread Athletics… except, that’s not true. Birdsong explained that while “everybody says that,” he’s never been to Tread, nor has he talked to anyone who works there. He simply watched a Tread video, then began experimenting with the grip the following day.
“I started playing catch with it — this was in spring training — and I’m not sure I can even remember who my catch partner was,” said Birdsong, whom the Giants took in the sixth round of the 2022 draft out of Eastern Illinois. “It might have been Spencer Bivens. But my changeup had been horrible the year before. It was basically just a bad fastball, a 15-vert slower fastball. That’s all it was. I needed to find another grip, one that wasn’t a splitter — I didn’t want to mess with one of those — so I started looking at videos. That one popped up.”
Birdsong’s previous attempts to find a quality changeup had all been for naught, but when he saw the kick-change, he thought, “Let’s try it.” To his knowledge, he’d never thrown one “under nine vert.” All of a sudden, he had one that was close to zero. The first coach he approached with that news didn’t believe it.
“I was throwing it, and it was tumbling,” Birdsong said. “It was doing what I wanted it to do. I told [bullpen coach Garvin Alston] that I’d thrown a changeup in the bullpen and it was negative vert. He goes ‘No.’ Then he was like, ‘Let me go take a look [at the data].’ I asked him about it the next day and he said, ‘Keep throwing it.’”
As Davis Martin and Matt Bowman explained here at FanGraphs last September, the pitch that Birdsong is now throwing has a close-cousin relationship with the better-known split change. While the name is new, the pitch itself really isn’t.
“I saw the video and called it a spike change,” said Birdsong. “I showed the grip to somebody — I forget who it was — and he was like, ‘Yeah, there are some guys who used to throw that. It’s called a kick-change.’ All it is, really, is that you’re kicking the axis of the ball. Whatever you call it, it works for me.”
During the course of my spring training coverage (especially right at the end), I ran into the Giants affiliates a couple of times as I trailed the Brewers and Dodgers farm systems. I saw enough to make a few tweaks to the Giants prospect list, which I have brief notes on below. You can see the complete updated list over on The Board. I’ve also included notes on a few recent trades.
Toolsy Outfielders With Strikeout Risk Who Have Moved Up
Dakota Jordan’s swing has changed (mostly his posture throughout the swing), and I think it gives him a better chance to hit. I was way out on him making any kind of viable contact before last year’s draft, but he has loud showcase tools (power/speed) and now we’ll see if the proactive changes make a difference for his contact ability. He has also looked good in center field, including highlight reel play in which he collided with the wall at Papago Park, but then forgot how many outs there were and spiked the baseball:
Man, it sure is nice to have baseball back, and we’ve already been treated with fantastic performances from across the league. There have been the usual Aaron Judge home runs, the return of Jacob deGrom’s dominance, the stretch of surprising Marlins walk-offs, and so much more. But for the next few minutes, we’re going to focus on the elite defense on display so far this season.
Great defense can come about in so many ways. Sometimes, it’s a feat of raw athleticism, while other excellent plays are a testament to the fielder’s intuition and preparation. Aside from actually making the plays, fielders must consider a multitude of factors in an extremely limited amount of time; the best fielders are also the best real-time processors. The best way to explain this is by watching it in action.
Alan Roden roped baseballs with regularity this spring, helping himself to land not only a roster spot, but also an Opening Day start in right field for the Toronto Blue Jays. Showing signs that he’s ready to take off at the MLB level, the 25-year-old left-handed hitter punished Grapefruit League hurlers to the tune of a 1.245 OPS and a 220 wRC+. He also coaxed six free passes and fanned just four times over his 37 plate appearances.
More than spring training results factored into his first big-league opportunity. Building on a strong 2024 season, split between Double-A New Hampshire and Triple-A Buffalo, Roden has been adding pop to his profile. Previously known more for his bat-to-ball skills than for his ability to clear fences, the erstwhile Creighton University Bluejay is now looking to lift.
Having read of Roden’s efforts to generate more power, I asked him how he’s gone about impacting the ball with more authority.
“I think it’s less of the actual impact that’s better,” Roden told me at Blue Jays camp. “It’s more the shape of the ball off the bat, directionally. The exit velocities are high enough to where if I’m getting in the air to the pull side, it’s going to go. That’s where the damage comes from, hitting the ball with more ideal launch angles.”
Roden has a B.A. in physics, so understanding the aerodynamics of ball flight, and the swing paths that produce results, comes with the territory. Explaining his mechanical adjustments was a simple exercise for the Middleton, Wisconsin native. Read the rest of this entry »
Joshua L. Jones-USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Every year, most teams hold some sort of team bonding, social event during spring training. The specifics of the event vary from team to team, but frequently they include renting out a movie theater and showing some cloying, inspirational movie like The Blind Side, Cool Runnings, Rudy, or better yet, a documentary like Free Solo. Regardless of the team’s outlook on the year, the goal is to get the players amped up for the season and ready to compete on the field, even if the competition in question is for fourth place in the division.
But what if instead of taking the clichéd route, teams actually tried to select a movie that fits their current vibe, one that’s thematically on brand with the state of their franchise? They won’t do this because spring training is a time for hope merchants to peddle their wares, even if they’re selling snake oil to sub-.500 teams. But spring training is over now, the regular season has begun, and it’s time to get real. So here are my movie selections for each National League team, sorted by release date from oldest to newest.
If you’re interested in which movies I selected for the American League teams, you can find those picks here. Read the rest of this entry »
Matt Chapman came in at no. 3 when our 2015 Oakland Athletics Top Prospects list was published in February of that year. Assigned a 45 FV by our then lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel, Chapman had been drafted 25th overall out of Cal State-Fullerton the previous summer. Playing most of his initial professional season in the Low-A Midwest League, the 21-year-old third baseman swatted five home runs and put up a modest .672 OPS over 202 plate appearances.
What did Chapman’s 2015 scouting report look like? Moreover, what does he think of it all these years later? Wanting to find out, I shared some of what McDaniel (now with ESPN) wrote and asked Chapman to respond to it.
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“A standout hitter and pitcher for Fullerton that didn’t have much first-round buzz for reasons I didn’t understand.”
“He was thinking like I do,” Chapman replied. “I thought I was a little underrated. Obviously, the A’s took a chance on me and it all worked out. But that’s funny, because I thought I had all the tools. I just wasn’t getting the love.”
“Chapman, has an 80 arm and has been into the high 90s on the mound, but is mostly an arm-strength guy with a short track record of pitching.”Read the rest of this entry »
