I’ve written quite a bit this year on trends in pitcher aging, specifically velocity loss and gain. In the last iteration I focused on the odds of pitchers gaining velocity back after a season where their fastball dropped by at least 1 mph.

In that piece I listed a few pitchers to keep your eye on given that their velocity was down from 2011. In June, I wrote about CC Sabathia for ESPN and noted that the big lefty is likely beginning to “age”, as the odds are quite a bit higher that pitchers over the age of 30 do not gain their velocity back once they’ve lost it.

After thinking about it a while it occurred to me that there is of course the chance that these pitchers will gain their velocity back by the end of the year (as I noted in both pieces). We know that, generally speaking, pitchers gain velocity as the season goes on. Temperatures rise, and so too do fastball velocities. If this is the case I wondered at what point in the season we can say with greater certainty that a pitcher is throwing as hard as he is going to throw. Is there a particular month where a velocity decline is more likely to translate to or predict a full season velocity decline?
Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, Sports Illustrated posted the results (in slide-show form, yay!) of recent survey they took asking 228 MLB players to name the most underrated position player in the game. These sorts of things usually generate “interesting” results, and this case was no exception. This is supposed to be a fun exercise, so it would be unfair to complain about the “unscientific” nature of the poll: why 228 players? How were they distributed across the teams? Were they position players themselves or a mix? How many votes did each player get? The notions of “underrated” and is itself vague (underrated by the media? The fans? Statistics?), so the respondents may have been thinking of different things when answering. Wouldn’t a truly underrated player fail to show up on a list of “top underrated players” at all?

Such complaints sort of miss the point. I assume this was simply meant to be a fun way to generate discussion. I personally would have liked to have seen one or two comments from respondents about each player to get a sense of what the respondents were thinking about when they answered. In any case, the list has some results that are pretty hilarious, as one might expect. One way of responding would be to come up with a different list. Grant Brisbee wrote up an excellent list of his own. Another would be to simply go through SI’s list and comment on it.

This post takes the second path, but the truth is, it is not quite the “fisking” one might expect. Yes, some choices are downright hilarious. However, given the qualifications above, I thought the responding players did okay. It is not the list I would have made, but they made some decent choices. Or maybe the list is like the movie Juno: the beginning is so horribly annoying that the rest seems better than it actually is.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday we talked about the questions facing the National League contenders. Today, we turn our attention to the American League. Every team but the Twins, Royals and Mariners are within four-two-and-a-half games of a spot in the postseason, if you count the wild card play-in game part of the postseason. That leaves us with eleven teams still playing for something in 2012. Or does it?

In the American League East, the Yankees have a comfortable seven-game lead, and seem poised to pull away with the division title. Yes, with injuries to CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte, the Yankees could improve by adding a dependable starting pitcher, but so far they haven’t been linked with the starters most likely to hit the trade market. Overall, though, the Yankees are in the best shape of any team heading into the second half.

Read the rest of this entry »

In this, their long-overdue rebuilding year, the Chicago Cubs have redefined terrible on the North Side. They currently sport an Major League Baseball-low 24 wins and have a dreadful duo of punchless offense and impotent pitching.

But they are not without trade chips as they approach a dark second half. Bryan LaHair and Jeff Samardzija — who possess an attractive blend of affordability and upside — and Ryan Dempster, Geovany Soto and David DeJesus will all get a number of inquiries as the deadline approaches. But the team is particularly eager to sell one asset more quickly than the others. His name is Alfonso Soriano.

Signed to a double-albatross contract — awarding the 36-year-old an $18 million salary through 2012, 2013 and 2014 — Soriano has no hopes of playing at a value commensurate with his income. However, he’s not without his strengths, and for certain teams looking for a power-hitting righty, Soriano might be the right fit.
Read the rest of this entry »

Heading into Tuesday’s games, the White Sox and Indians sit half a game apart atop of the American League Central division, with the expected division-winner Tigers five games back. This morning, Chris Cwik addressed the White Sox’ need to upgrade at third base to stay competitive in the division. The Indians need an upgrade as well–a big, powerful upgrade.

The Indians’ 32-27 record is a bit misleading. Cleveland’s scored only 261 runs and allowed 277, putting the team’s Pythagorean record at 28-31. The Tigers have nearly the same split and sit at 28-32 in the standings. The White Sox, on the other hand, have scored 291 runs and allowed 256, putting their 32-26 pretty much in line with their expected record.

Cleveland’s offense is doing somethings well. The Tribe has the highest walk rate (9.8%) and the lowest strikeout rate (16.2%) in the American League, putting them third in the league in on-base percentage (.329). But the Indians’ wOBA (.314) ranks only ninth. Why? A complete lack of power.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you hadn’t guessed from my first piece on Midwest League prospects, the league is simply loaded with talent. Taking that statement one step further, few would argue it was the best prospect league in all of minor league baseball at present. In this installment, seven more prospects ranging from the relative unknowns to household names (if there is such a thing when it comes to prospects).

Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday, Dan Szymborski utilized his ZIPS projection system and the standings as of Monday night to re-cast the projected standings for the end of the season in a piece for ESPN Insider. In those standings, the Detroit Tigers were still listed as the projected winners of the AL Central, nudging out the Indians by a two game margin with their projected final total of 87 wins.

Since that article was posted, the Indians completed a three game sweep of the Tigers, even beating Detroit with Justin Verlander on the mound this afternoon. The sweep widened the Indians lead to six games (with 118 to go), and made the Indians the new favorites to end the year as the division winners.

Read the rest of this entry »

Shin-Soo Choo is a BABIP wizard. Sort for batting average on balls in play since 2008, and sitting there in second place is Choo. After four years of BABIPs in the high .300s, he dropped back to earth in 2011 but still finds himself above the league norm these days. Even with over 2000 plate appearances under his belt, it’s fair to ask: what does Choo’s true-talent BABIP look like?

Read the rest of this entry »

With the closest Midwest League stadium five hours away, my providing first hand scouting coverage of that league is difficult to say the least. Fortunately, a contact has been kind enough to provide me the scouting scoop on more than a handful of the league’s top prospects. These aren’t exact quotes, but summaries of conversations had over the course of the first two months of the minor league season. Read the rest of this entry »

Cleveland’s 5-3 win over preseason divisional favorite Detroit may have finally garnered their current divisional lead some attention. What is at least somewhat surprising about Cleveland’s lead is that some of their seemingly more significant pieces have performed poorly — one thinks particularly of the supposed top of their starting rotation (Ubaldo Jimenez and Justin Masterson). However, the offense has been playing well, relatively speaking. They currently have the best wRC+ out of all the teams in the division.

Cleveland’s good hitting so far this season can be credited to Carlos Santana, the resurgence (at least in walk rate) of Shin-Soo Choo, Jason Kipnis starting the year in the majors, and yet another early-season hot streak by Jack Hannahan, Cleveland’s most valuable hitter to this point in the season has been shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera. Cabrera had a excellent 2011 that led to a nice extension, but most observers (as well as projection systems) expected regression. So far, that has not happened. Cabrera has been even better in the young 2012 season (153 wRC+ compared to 118 in 2011). How is he doing it, and to what extent is it sustainable?

Read the rest of this entry »