Archive for Guardians

Back in March, before the season began, our own Jeff Sullivan was interested in a way to potentially improve Corey Kluber. Kluber, of course, was already one of the game’s very best pitchers, but even the best can get better. Clayton Kershaw’s gotten better seemingly every year he’s been in the league. Kluber could stand to improve as well. Sullivan’s idea for improving Kluber more or less went like this:

Kluber, at least in theory, could benefit from throwing more cutters and curves, and fewer fastballs. The fastball could still remain the primary pitch, but maybe the cutter would become a co-primary weapon. And the curve would show up in greater amounts, particularly in lesser-expected situations.

Reasoning being, Kluber possesses one of the few best cutters in baseball. Kluber possesses one of the few best curves in baseball. The fastballs Kluber throws have graded out as below-average pitches, and yet Kluber’s always led with the fastball. And so the thinking went, fewer fastballs, more cutters and curves, and you wind up with a better pitcher.

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Imagine you’re floating on a raft down a lazy river. It can’t be so hard to imagine, it’s still August. In one hand, naturally, you’ve got an adult soda; the other, you place into the water to check the temperature. Suddenly, you’re headed — slightly but perceptibly — towards the bank on the same side as that hand you’ve submerged. Now stop imagining.

In layman’s terms, what you’ve done is to use your hand as a rudder of sorts. That’s one way of characterizing the effect. What you could also say, however, is that you’ve disrupted the laminar flow, creating a force that alters the direction of the object within the flow. Those aren’t layman’s terms.

Whatever the precise words you’re using, they’re all relevant to a baseball flying through the air. The seams cause drag in different ways, and that drag causes movement. Physicist Alan Nathan does a better job explaining it both here and elsewhere, but that’s a simple way to understand the relationship of the seams to movement.

Trevor Bauer is currently showing the best horizontal movement on his sinker of his career. That’s what this graph illustrates:

When I asked him about it, he agreed that it was good earlier in the year. Not recently, though. “Recently, it’s been shit,” he told me Tuesday afternoon. And you can see that, yes, indeed, the horizontal movement has been more erratic than it was earlier in the year.

Part of that is just the fact that the body changes slightly over time. It’s related to the difficulty in improving command. Little muscles act differently as they get more or less fatigued than the muscles around them. “I also overhauled my delivery a couple of years ago, and I’m starting to get better muscle memory for this new delivery over time,” Bauer pointed out. So that’s helped him get to this point where he’s commanding the ball better, which has allowed him to throw the front-door sinker to lefties more often this year, a big part in putting up his best strikeout- and walk-rate differential this year (and overall numbers) against lefties of his career.

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It was fair to wonder about the potential of the Indians’ offense when Peter Gammons went on live television during the Winter Meetings and reported that Michael Brantley would be out until August after learning his shoulder injury was worse than originally expected. It might’ve been fair to wonder about it before then; this was a unit that was below average by wRC+ in 2015, and added to their lineup only Rajai Davis, Mike Napoli, and Juan Uribe — a trio of 34- to 36-year-olds who were coming off just average offensive seasons themselves — in what was then seen as an underwhelming offseason. Everyone expected the Indians to pitch, but without Brantley, could an outfield of Davis, Abraham Almonte, and Lonnie Chisenhall lead a playoff team?

And then Brantley’s shoulder issues wound up being worse than even Gammons reported, and Cleveland’s best hitter over the previous two seasons managed just 43 painful plate appearances before succumbing to another shoulder surgery that ended his season once and for all. Essentially one-third of their entire offseason busted — Uribe was designated for assignment in early August — and yet here we are, more than two-thirds of the way through the year, and the Indians have managed a top-five offense by runs scored and a top-10 group by wRC+. Arguably, it’s the hitting that’s been their biggest strength, before the pitching.

Even more shocking is that same lackluster outfield unit currently ranks third in WAR and sixth in wRC+. A lot of that has to do with Tyler Naquin tapping into unforeseen power and hitting like Anthony Rizzo, but even more important to the Indians’ success this season has been the fact that, despite Brantley’s lost year, they haven’t actually been without him at all. Turns out the key to not missing your All-Star left fielder is to simply clone him using a 5-foot-9 utility infielder:

Jose Ramirez has provided the Indians with a near-exact replica of Brantley’s 2016 preseason projected numbers, and due to Ramirez’s superior base-running and defensive abilities, he’s already outperformed Brantley’s full-season WAR projection in just 466 plate appearances. Ramirez even took the impersonation a step further by filling in as the team’s primary left fielder for much of the season — despite having played just 14 major-league innings in the outfield prior to this year — before returning to a more familiar post at third base upon Uribe’s dismissal from the team.

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Andrew Miller made a batter look silly last night. Andrew Miller makes batters look silly most nights, but last night, a batter looked particularly silly. One surefire way to identify a batter who just got done looking silly is to check whether he’s laying down in dirt right after he swung. Let’s see.

Q: Was This Major Leaguer Laying Down in the Dirt Right After He Swung?

A: Sure was

That there batter sure looked silly. The good news for Khris Davis is, he’s not alone. He didn’t even take the season’s most ill-advised swing against Miller. As our own Jeff Sullivan pointed out back in May, maybe the thing Miller does very best is force hitters to take ill-advised swings, at least certainly relative to the ones they don’t take. I’ll explain. When Jeff wrote his article in May, Miller’s O-Swing% against was higher than his Z-Swing% against, making him the only pitcher in baseball with such a distinction. To translate that into English: batters were swinging at would-be balls from Miller more frequently than they were swinging at would-be strikes. That’s not how hitting is supposed to work.

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Brandon Guyer is currently baseball’s Hit-by-Pitch King. You could take that to mean this year, as Guyer leads all batters with 23 hit by pitches this season. Or you could take it to mean lately, as Guyer leads all batters over the last two years with 47 hit by pitches, and his 58 over the last three leaves him just one behind Anthony Rizzo’s league-leading total, despite Guyer having half the plate appearances over that stretch. Or, you could even take it to mean all-time, because if you set a career plate appearance minimum of 500 and search the entire history of modern baseball dating back to 1921, no one’s been hit more frequently than our recently anointed Hit-by-Pitch King.

HBP%, 1921-present, min. 500 PA

1. Brandon Guyer, 5.9%
2. Derek Dietrich, 4.7%
3. F.P. Santangelo, 4.0%
4. Ron Hunt, 3.9%
5. Carlos Quentin, 3.9%

The gap is remarkable. Throughout the entire history of modern baseball, at this particular skill, Brandon Guyer is truly a one-of-a-kind. And make no mistakes, it is a skill. Maybe “skill” isn’t the word you’d immediately think to use, but another way to think about a skill is the ability to repeatedly do something others can’t as a means to gain an advantage over the opponent. Most often, we see that manifested in a batter consistently getting hits, or stealing bases, or drawing walks. Oh, Guyer can hit, too, but where he really gains his edge is the being hit.

Eno Sarris wrote about this a bit when the Indians acquired Guyer at the deadline for low-level prospects Nathan Lukes and Jhonleider Salinas. The reason the Indians went out and got Guyer is because he can play all three outfield positions with what appears to be above-average ability, and mostly because he’s been one of baseball’s very best bats against left-handed pitching since he began receiving regular playing time in 2014. As Eno put it, Guyer improves the Indians’ ability to both hit lefties, and be hit by lefties. But plenty of batters have been able to hit lefties. Nobody in the history of the sport’s been hit like Guyer, so that’s where our focus turns.

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Tampa Bay has aggressively scouted the lowest levels of the minor leagues in Florida and Arizona looking to get in early on burgeoning young talent. In the Brandon Guyer deal, the Rays acquired soon-to-be 21-year-old RHP Jhonleider Salinas, who is of that ilk. Salinas has been up to 95 for me in the AZL, sitting 93-94 with inconsistent feel for a changeup in the 85-87 mph range as well as an upper-70s slider. Both have flashed average. Though his delivery is oddly paced, Salinas has a loose, quick arm which make his pitches projectable, though it’s unlikely he ever has a starter’s command. He has more upside than the typical return for a platoon outfielder.

The other piece in the deal is 2015 seventh-rounder Nathan Lukes, who’s had a successful statistical season, hitting .301/.375/.453 in the Midwest League before a promotion to Hi-A Lynchburg. Lukes is more about bat control than he is bat speed and I’m skeptical about his ability to keep hitting as he moves to the upper levels of the minors, though he’s an above-average runner and plays a decent center field and he might be an up-and-down fifth outfielder just based on that. He projects as an org player for me.

In the deal that sent Steve Pearce to Baltimore, the Rays acquired switch-hitting C Jonah Heim. He’s more comfortable hitting right-handed and has average power from that side already — and might grow into some more — but the carrying tool here is the defense. Heim is mobile for his size and blocks balls in the dirt well. He also has an above-average arm. If Heim can find that sweet spot of physical development that allow him to make more of an offensive impact than he’s currently capable while retaining the quickness that makes him a good defensive catcher, then he might be a regular. It’s more likely he ends up as a back-up or platoon type of catcher.

As it has been the past few years, the 2016 non-waiver trade deadline brought about a flurry of activity that was hard to keep up with even if it was the only thing you were doing. Since most of us have other things that we have to or would like to occupy our time with, we figured we would save you some hassle and create an omnibus post with all of our trade deadline content so that you have it all in one place. For clarity’s sake, I’m going to limit this to articles about trades that actually took place.

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The Indians, jilted in their effort to improve their offense behind the plate, went back to the trade trough for a smaller deal. They’ve added 30-year-old right-handed Brandon Guyer to their outfield, at the cost of two lower-level prospects in outfielder Nathan Lukes and right-hander Jhonleider Salinas, as Jordan Bastian is reporting.

Though Guyer is no Lucroy, he does fit a need on the Indians team — he can hit lefties well. So far, he’s been 42% better than league average against lefties. The Indians can skew lefty-heavy and have been 6% better than league average against righties so far this year, and 4% worse than average against lefties.

In the outfield, Tyler Naquin and Lonnie Chisenhall are lefties hitting the ball well, and though Naquin is starting against pitchers of both hands, Chisenhall has traditionally been platooned. Since right-hander Rajai Davis has been a bit better than a strict platoon player — he’s been league average against righties the last two years, at least, and provides base running and defensive value in the corner outfield — he might remain a full-time starter until Michael Brantley comes back. The team could easily platoon Chisenhall with Guyer.

Jose Ramirez is increasingly needed at third base with Juan Uribe’s poor play at the plate, so he’s not in the outfield mix post-Guyer, but there’s one more place the newcomer could help. Switch-hitting designated hitter Carlos Santana has really been struggling against lefties this year (64 wRC+) despite being fine against them for his career (128 wRC+).

Between right field and designated hitter, Guyer can at least step into the box against lefties and improve that poor team split against southpaws.

Stepping into the box is the key word here — nobody has been hit more by lefty pitchers in the last three years than Guyer. That’s how he’s turned a middling walk rate into a plus on-base percentage, and by all accounts, it’s a skill. Getting hit by pitches has the same year-to-year correlation (.641) as weighted on base average, and a better one than on-base percentage.

Guyer’s not a great defender, but he can help in most facets of the game, and will be a strong asset for the team when they’re facing a left-hander. Given that they gave up two prospects that weren’t on anyone’s top 100 lists and are far away from the majors, this trade made too much sense for the American League Central leaders to pass up.

A bevy of trades went down over the weekend, as this year’s trade deadline-season entered into full swing. Here are the prospects who changed teams the last couple of days, as evaluated by my newly updated KATOH system. KATOH denotes WAR forecast for first six years of player’s major-league career. KATOH+ uses similar methodology with consideration also for Baseball America’s rankings.

The Andrew Miller Trade

Clint Frazier, OF, New York (AL)

KATOH: 2.7 WAR
KATOH+: 4.7 WAR

Frazier had been promoted to Triple-A a week ago after slashing a strong .276/.356/.469 with 13 steals at Double-A this year. He pairs a high walk rate with decent power and speed, making him one of the most promising offensive prospects in baseball. Despite possessing average speed, Frazier plays mostly the corner-outfield spots these days, and hasn’t graded out particularly well there defensively. This suggests most of his big-league value will come from his hitting. Still, considering he’s a 21-year-old who’s already mastered Double-A, his future looks bright.

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The package netted by Brian Cashman and the Yankees in exchange for Andrew Miller is headlined by two big names in OF Clint Frazier and LHP Justus Sheffield (both of whom project as average-or-better regulars for me) and supplemented by two potential relievers in RHPs Ben Heller and J.P. Feyereisen.

Clint Frazier was the fifth-overall pick in the 2013 draft out of Loganville High School in Georgia. He was signed away from his commitment to Georgia with a $3.5 million bonus, the most lucrative bonus in Indians draft history. Frazier was a high-effort spark plug with elite bat speed, though he didn’t look like your typical high-upside prep draftee.

Before the draft, most organizations were correctly skeptical about Frazier’s long-term ability to play center field despite some of the run times he was posting (he ran a 6.6-second 60-yard dash at East Coast Pro) because of the way they anticipated his body to fill out. Frazier was listed at 5-foot-11, 185 pounds as an amateur but has grown into a listed 6-foot-1, 190, though he’s probably heavier than that. Despite his likely corner-only destiny, Frazier’s bat speed and advanced feel for hitting made him a worthy top-five selection, even if he had atypical physical projection.

Because of the superhuman circumference of his biceps and his generally muscular physique, Frazier is most often body-comped to Popeye the Sailor Man, a reference I hope doesn’t elude the youngest of our readers. Though he posts some plus run times to first base because of a natural jailbreak, he’s only about an average runner whose middling speed is masked by visible effort and good base-running instincts. Frazier’s speed and feel for center are enough that I think he’d be passable there in an emergency, but I wouldn’t advocate him playing there everyday. I think that, given his size and build just shy of age 22, Frazier is likely to slow down as he enters his prime. His arm strength should allow him to play in either outfield corner (though I think he fits best in left), where I believe he’ll be an average defender at maturity.

Frazier’s 80-grade bat speed has helped him generate a .278/.360/.452 career batting line. He’s hit despite the excessive loop his hands take back to the ball, a mechanical hiccup that I think causes his barrel to arrive late and robs him of the ability to pull the ball consistently. This could dilute his game power a bit, but Frazier is strong enough to muscle some of those balls out to right field anyway, and the new Yankee Stadium will be particularly kind to this flaw. Though his swing features a good bit of effort and Frazier has struggled some with strikeouts throughout his minor-league career, he still projects as an average Major League hitter. Again, the bat speed is the primary reason for this, but Frazier has shown that he has some barrel control and the ability to make adjustments in the middle of at-bats, as well. Reports on his makeup are glowing.

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