Last week, I talked about a few young players who teams should be itching to sign to long-term contracts. Due to public demand, another set of projections is on the way, but I’ll admit I intentionally omitted one pitcher, Pablo López, from the first look because I wanted more space to talk about him.
Unlike a lot of pitchers the Marlins have accumulated during their various fire sales, López wasn’t a highly touted arm in the minors. Prior to 2017 — the season during which he and three other players were traded by the Mariners to the Marlins for reliever David Phelps — he was basically a non-entity among prospect-watchers. He didn’t receive an official ZiPS projection that year, but if he had, it would have been similar to the projection he received before the 2018 season, which essentially saw him as a below-average innings-eater at his peak. At no time did he rank on a ZiPS Top 100 prospect list.
His first couple of campaigns with the Marlins featured decidedly mixed results. While López was essentially a league-average pitcher thanks to exit velocities that ranked towards the top of the league (the good kind of top of the league), he lacked the ability to finish off batters. From 2018-19, he basically threw four pitches: a relatively straight fastball, a sinker, a curve, and a changeup. None them were whiff-makers, and none of them had even a 20% put-away rate, resulting in a mediocre 7.5 K/9 combined over those two seasons. Read the rest of this entry »
This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.
Notes
As the Cardinals are apt to do with their prospects, they pushed Burleson, a former two-way player, to the upper levels very quickly, having him spend most of his first full season at Double-A before a late-season promotion to Memphis, where he began 2022. He has had virtually no issues, slashing .282/.337/.486 so far as a pro, with a whopping .321/.367/.591 line at Triple-A this year. Burleson has above-average raw power and is hitting the ball hard despite utilizing a simple swing, one that becomes even simpler when he has two strikes. He is adept at hitting up-and-in fastballs, though he sometimes strangely inside-outs them to left field, and he also tends to take pitches down and away from him the opposite way, with enough strength to do extra-base damage in that direction.
Burleson is a pretty aggressive hitter whose chase rates have historically been in the 37-40% range, which would put him among the top 25 or so swing-happiest qualified big league hitters. It’s a somewhat scary underlying data point for a guy who doesn’t bring a lot to the table on defense, as Burleson is a tentative corner outfielder with a surprisingly average arm for a former college pitcher. Burleson has absolutely put himself in the short-term big league conversation with his upper-level performance, but there’s still bust risk here and he’s likely a corner platoon bat who’ll compete with Lars Nootbaar (who has better plate discipline, but a swing less optimized for power) for plate appearances against righties once Corey Dickerson’s one-year deal is up. Read the rest of this entry »
This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.
Notes
Loftin, who was drafted as a shortstop, was first listed as an outfielder on the Royals’ 2022 winter minicamp roster and has begun a transition to center field, playing there exclusively so far in 2022. It’s a logical move given the glut of middle infielders ahead of him in the org, and it’s worth noting that the Royals timed it so Loftin would have two seasons of play prior to his 40-man deadline day to make the move. While Loftin still needs some technical polish (for instance, he has a tendency to backpedal rather than turn his hips and run, and he doesn’t look comfortable with at-’em balls) and often looks like a recent conversion guy out there, his gap-to-gap range is very exciting, and he has the pure speed to be an above-average or better center field defender with reps.
Much more polished is Loftin’s bat. He’s extremely tough to beat with velocity and squares up fastballs with regularity, spraying them into both gaps. He keeps things incredibly simple at the plate, which is part of why he has made such consistent contact, but one can imagine him making more athletic use of his lower half and adding more power eventually. Loftin is also a very wiry, pretty skinny guy. He’s 23, so maybe the cement on his body is dry, but between his frame still having room for mass and his swing perhaps housing dormant power, there are a few potential avenues for him to add thump. Right now he profiles as a contact-oriented center fielder, a profile that’s currently pretty scarce across baseball. Myles Straw is a more extreme contemporary example. Read the rest of this entry »
Pitchers getting injured is never good news, even in a year in which pitching talent seems relatively easy to come by. Sadly, we got a bunch of high-profile names hitting the IL over the weekend, so here’s a quick Monday rundown in case you were doing something more fun on Sunday than stressing about injuries, like watching the baseball games (non-Giants fans, at least).
Given the monumental task of replacing Jacob deGrom in the Mets’ rotation at the start of the season, Megill took his job surprisingly literally, doing his best imitation of the team’s ace. Through six starts, his ERA stood at 2.43 with a nearly identical FIP at 2.44, improving significantly on his major league debut in 2021. Then came the worst start of his professional career — including the minors — as he surrendered eight runs and didn’t even make it through the second inning against the Nationals last Wednesday. Megill can’t point to bad luck either; it’s hard to complain too strenuously about BABIP when you have an xBA of .563 and an xSLG of 1.263.
On the plus side, Megill’s velocity wasn’t down during that disaster of a start, and he didn’t report any discomfort until after the game. One thing that struck me, however, is how much his horizontal release point has changed in a lateral direction throughout the season. From his first start to his last outing, Megill’s horizontal release point has shifted about five inches; those release points tend to be far more consistent in-season, as players are more likely to tinker with this in the winter and spring. Release point inconsistency is a concern, and at least one study that I’m familiar with has linked shifting lateral release points with an eventual need for Tommy John surgery, albeit with low odds (a roughly 5% higher chance of a UCL tear with every 10 centimeters of movement). That’s getting ahead of ourselves, but it’s something to file in the back of your mind.
The decision to put Megill on the IL was made after he experienced soreness during his bullpen on Saturday, with biceps tendinitis as the announced culprit. Colin Holderman got the immediate call-up to take Megill’s spot on the roster, though that may be short-lived, as David Peterson started on Friday. Trevor Williams will get Megill’s start on Monday night against the Cardinals.
In other Mets injury news — of course there’s more, it’s the Mets — catcher James McCann will be out six weeks due to a broken hamate bone. Patrick Mazeika was called up and likely endeared himself to Mets fans more than McCann has by hitting the go-ahead home run in the seventh on Saturday against the Mariners. McCann’s offense has disappeared so quickly over the last year-plus that there’s not likely to be any real consequence for the Mets other than a thinning of the depth chart.
Amid a promising comeback campaign, Luzardo took a step back last week, walking four and allowing four runs in 2.2 innings against the Diamondbacks, bloating his ERA to 4.03. Like Megill, there were no suspicious velocity dropoffs — something to watch for given Luzardo’s injury history — but he reported forearm soreness after the game. In “crossing our fingers” news, he did not believe the pain was similar to what he experienced before his first Tommy John surgery, back when he was a high schooler in 2016:
I just started feeling a little something in the San Diego game, towards the back end of it, but nothing when I was pitching or anything like that. It was more just a little soreness. I kind of backed off a little between my starts. There wasn’t really pain or anything, more like stiffness.
The Marlins held off until this weekend to place Luzardo on the IL, retroactive to his May 10 start, when it became evident that he would be unavailable. It seems that Cody Poteet, already stretched out a bit in relief of Luzardo against Arizona and not used since, will get the spot start on Tuesday, with Sandy Alcantara going on Monday.
As for replacing Luzardo long-term, it doesn’t appear as if the Marlins plan to recall top prospect Max Meyer to fill the spot. My reading of the tea leaves is that they’re not going to push Edward Cabrera up soon as a replacement either; while he’ll get another chance in the not-too-distant future, I think Saturday’s start against Triple-A Nashville would have been a few tune-up innings rather than a 90-pitch outing if a callup was imminent.
Short of any additional bad news, it’s entirely possible that, with two off days in the next week, Luzardo may only miss just the one start.
Kershaw was a late scratch on Friday against the Phillies, pushing Walker Buehler’s start up a day on normal rest. Kershaw has a history of lower back pain and at least one instance (2012) of hip impingement, so the Dodgers are being careful with him. The culprit this time is inflammation of the SI joint, which, I believe, is the sacroiliac joint and not the Sports Illustrated joint; on the pelvis, it’s between the hip and the spine. As I did not attend Hollywood Upstairs Medical College, and my medical knowledge is primarily evaluating how sick I’ll feel if I eat some deliciously spicy food, let’s consult actual doctors here:
Biomechanically, the sacroiliac joint performs several functions. Primarily, its purpose is to attenuate the distribution of force loads from the lower extremities. It functions both as a shock absorber for the spine above and converts torque from the lower extremities into the rest of the body.
As pitching largely involves transfers of force between body parts, it’s understandable why the Dodgers see the need to be cautious. Last year was the first time Kershaw was placed on the IL with elbow issues, and given that it scared them enough to shut him down quickly for the postseason, this is not unexpected caution.
To replace Kershaw on the roster, the Dodgers called up Michael Grove, who got the start on Sunday and may get another down the road, though with a very quick hook. Andre Jackson looked like a rotation fallback option at the start of the season, but he’s failed to finish the third in each of his last three starts for Triple-A Oklahoma City, allowing 10 walks in just 3.1 innings.
Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s first full season in the major leagues was somehow both a success and a disappointment. League average offensive production from someone who only hit Double-A in 2019, with solid defense to boot? That’ll get you 2 WAR in just over 500 plate appearances, an impressive showing. He cranked 18 homers as well – all in all, a statistically solid debut.
On the other hand, he did it in a way that looked nothing like his minor league numbers. Chisholm’s intrigue had always stemmed from his sneaky power. Despite his diminutive frame – he’s listed at 5-foot-11, but I’d take the under – he put up impressive raw exit velocities and excellent home run numbers. He hit 25 homers in just 501 plate appearances in 2018, then followed it up with another 21 in 458 plate appearances in ’19. Those are serious numbers, and it’s no accident that Eric Longenhagen graded Chisholm’s raw power as a 60 on the 20-80 scale.
Despite his 18 bombs, though, he didn’t really display the thump he’s capable of. It’s not that he didn’t have the raw power we thought he did – he posted an 84th percentile maximum exit velocity – but quite frankly, he just hit too many grounders. You can look at his minor league GB/FB ratios, compare it to last year, and see the change:
Jazz Chisholm Jr., Batted Balls by Year
Year
Level
GB/FB
GB%
FB%
2016
R
1.72
49.7%
28.9%
2017
A
0.86
35.3%
41.2%
2018
A-A+
0.82
35.0%
42.5%
2019
AA
0.25
15.0%
59.5%
2020
MLB
0.72
37.1%
51.4%
2021
MLB/AAA
1.59
48.8%
30.7%
Aside from a brief and grounder-heavy rookie ball debut, Chisholm has avoided putting the ball on the ground. You can’t hit a home run on a grounder, no matter how hard you try. That’s how he ended up with average isolated power in 2021 despite his prodigious pop. He just couldn’t elevate, plain and simple.
This season, that’s in the past. He’s come out firing on all cylinders, hitting .295/.337/.611 with six homers in his first 105 plate appearances. He’s probably not going to keep hitting .295, but he probably will keep up his power output, because he’s back to doing what he used to do best: getting the ball in the air with great regularity. His groundball-to-fly ball ratio is back down to 0.76, his 30.6% groundball rate is the 12th-lowest in the majors, and he’s elevating and celebrating as well as he ever did in the minors.
Call it rocketed-ball science: if you have Chisholm’s power, putting the ball in the air is the best thing you can do. In his major league career so far, when Chisholm can’t get the ball in the air (which I defined as launch angles of five degrees or below), he’s hitting .252 with a .289 slugging percentage, good for a .237 wOBA. That’s awful – and that’s when he puts the ball in play. That’s when the good results are supposed to come.
When he gets above the five degree mark, good things start to happen. He’s hitting .421 with an .870 slugging percentage. If you’re a wOBA person, that works out to .531. That’s the good stuff – the kind of premium production on contact scouts expected out of Chisholm. This isn’t some “oh, he’s just on a hot streak in 2022 that’s the majority of his production” nonsense, either; cut 2022 out, and he’s hitting .412 with an .848 slugging percentage.
Think my five degree cutoff was arbitrary? It absolutely was! Let’s do it again at 10 degrees. Under 10 degrees, Jazz is hitting .327 with a .375 slug. At 10 or more, he’s batting .388 with an .881 slug. No matter how you slice it, when he can keep himself from hitting the ball into the ground, good things happen.
So why doesn’t he do it all the time? Because of pitching, basically. You don’t get to hit off a tee and launch moon shots (named after Wally Moon, thanks Effectively Wild!) all day. Pitchers want grounders or whiffs, and where they locate the ball has a lot to do with what happens after hitters connect.
The lower the pitch, the higher your chances of hitting a grounder, obviously. Even as he’s made strides at putting the ball in the air, Chisholm is hitting grounders on 41.7% of his batted balls when he makes contact in the lower third of the zone. That number stood at 55.3% last year.
Make contact in the middle third, and what kind of hitter you are does more to determine the outcomes. Last year, Chisholm stayed on the ground on exactly 50% of his batted balls that were in the middle third of the strike zone height-wise. This year, that’s down to 35.7%. By the time you get to the upper third, you almost can’t help but elevate. Chisholm hit grounders on 30.2% of his batted balls that originated from the upper third of the strike zone last year, right around league average for that area of the zone. This year, that’s down to 10%.
In other words, Jazz is finding a way to put everything in the air again, like he always has. The question, then, should be what happened last year. As it turns out, he had a few stretches of productive air contact, but spent a few months with some absurdly high groundball rates, torpedoing the whole operation:
I’ll be honest with you: I can’t completely explain this one. It’s not like he’s fixing it with approach, at least not entirely. Sure, he’s swinging more at pitches in the upper third of the zone, but he’s swinging more at pitches in the lower third as well. More of his contact has come in the lower third of the zone this year, in fact.
I can speculate, though. I watched a giant pile of at-bats from the peak of his grounder-heavy spell last year and tried to pick something out that could explain the change. This is extremely non-scientific, but here, watch him hit a grounder on August 31 last year on a fastball right down the pipe:
Now, for a baseline, here he is hitting a grounder on a fastball right down the pipe this April:
Is that difference in swing responsible for the huge change in groundball rate? I’m hesitant to pin it all on that. But he clearly looks less comfortable in the first clip; he’s bouncing around, his hands are meaningfully higher at pitch release, and his lower body looks to me like it’s slightly out of sync at the point of contact.
I’m absolutely not a hitting coach. I wouldn’t take what I’m saying here as gospel. But if you asked me which hitter was more likely to do damage, I’d take the one who stayed still, kept his hands lower, and looked more balanced on his follow-through.
He’s doing other things too, of course. He’s making far more contact over the heart of the plate (61% of his batted balls this year compared to 50% last year), and those are easier pitches to hit. He’s more aggressive over the heart of the plate in general – 78% swing rate this year against 70% last year – while chasing fewer breaking balls outside the strike zone. The more you do that, the more you get pitches to hit.
It’s not resulting in more walks, but that might change. Challenging Chisholm is a tricky proposition; he still swings and misses quite a bit in the zone, but he does a ton of damage when he connects. The equation was a lot easier last year, when he was putting the ball on the ground far too often. Now, you’re liable to watch a jog around the bases if you get too comfortable with throwing him pitches in the zone. Thus far, pitchers haven’t given in. They’re getting their strikeouts, but Chisholm is turning plenty of those in-zone pitches into souvenirs.
Of course, he can hit home runs outside the zone too. Just ask Mark Melancon, Chisholm’s latest victim:
I’d like to have a better answer for you. I’d like to give you one simple statistic that explains Chisholm’s new form. I don’t have one, though. I think it’s a confluence of many things. He’s swinging at better pitches. He looks more locked in at the plate. He’s returning to his old batted ball distribution – maybe this has basically been him the whole time. Whatever it is though, it boils down to this: when Chisholm is rolling, he’s got top-shelf power and the batted ball distribution to take advantage of it. Only time will tell if he can keep it up, but things look pretty rosy in Miami at the moment.
This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.
Darius Vines, RHP, Atlanta Braves Level & Affiliate: Double-A Mississippi Age: 24 Org Rank:TBDFV: 35+
Weekend Line: 6.1 IP, 4 H, 3 R, 0 BB, 11 K
Notes
Even though Vines had K’d a batter per inning leading up to it, his trademark changeup hadn’t been consistently plus this year until Sunday’s outing. It’s actually been Vines’ fastball, which has lift and carry through the strike zone, that has induced most of his swings and misses this year, even though he hasn’t had any kind of velo spike and is still sitting in the 89-92 mph range and topping out close to 94. A fringy, low-80s slurve rounds out a solid if unspectacular pitch mix that has been weaponized by Vines’ command. Fastball playability, a good changeup, and plenty of strikes drive spot starter projection here. Vines will likely enter the offseason on Atlanta’s 40-man bubble. Read the rest of this entry »
This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.
Calvin Ziegler, RHP, New York Mets Level & Affiliate: Low-A St. Lucie Age: 19 Org Rank:TBDFV: 40
Weekend Line: 4.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 K
Notes
Ziegler was generating enough buzz during minor league spring training that a scout in Arizona mentioned his name to me totally unprompted, as a heads up that he might be breaking out. A Canadian high schooler in the Toronto area, Ziegler was in a bind ahead of the 2021 draft because travel restrictions were going to make it hard for him to be seen by scouts. He transferred to TNXL Academy, an athletics “school” in Florida, for his pre-draft spring. The Mets made him their second round pick and signed him for just over $900,000, then shut him down during the regular season.
He’s come out hot to start 2022, at least from a bat-missing standpoint, with last Friday’s outing his most efficient from a strike-throwing standpoint. Ziegler’s stuff isn’t appreciably different than when he was in high school, though he is mixing in his secondary stuff more heavily. He used his fastball over 75% of the time on the summer showcase circuit, but his usage has been closer to 50% so far this year. Both Ziegler’s trademark breaking ball and his mid-80s changeup show bat-missing potential, though the former has much more consistent finish. While Ziegler doesn’t have the prototypical pitching prospect’s frame at a fairly mature six feet tall, his delivery is very athletic, with the power and balance he shows in his lower half and the flexibility of his upper back generating optimism that he might yet throw harder than his current 91-96 mph range. Ziegler’s “lack” of height and the way he gets deep into his legs during his delivery give his fastball a tough-to-hit line. Changeup and overall command refinement are all that stand between Ziegler and pretty comfortable projection into a rotation. Read the rest of this entry »
Notes
Cabrera was shut down in early April with a biceps issue. This came a few days after throwing three impressive spring training frames against the Nationals, during which he notched three strikeouts, including one to Nelson Cruz. His stint on the IL, though relatively brief, is the latest entry in what has been a long history of injuries since his professional career began in 2016, but he put forth a strong showing in his first start of the season. Read the rest of this entry »
Three days ago, Jesús Luzardo was a fun bounceback candidate. As a minor leaguer, he was one of the best prospects in the game, with an explosive fastball, a spectacular array of secondaries, and plus command. In his first two seasons of big league experience, that continued; he missed bats, walked only 6.8% of his opponents, and posted an ERA in the upper threes. But in 2021, his command collapsed, and with it his untouchable status in Oakland. In the midst of a 6.61 ERA season with an 11% walk rate, the A’s shipped him off to Miami in exchange for Starling Marte.
It’s not three days ago anymore. Now, after a dominant start, I’m considering a different question: is Luzardo Miami’s best pitcher? Is he one of the best pitchers in baseball, full stop? That’s probably hyperbole, but again: Luzardo was one of the best pitching prospects in baseball only a handful of years ago. Let’s give his remarkable turnaround the consideration it deserves, and see if we can figure out what changes he’s made to unlock this new level of performance while we’re at it.
First things first: has Luzardo made any changes to his delivery? To figure this out with my remedial understanding of pitching mechanics, I watched one fastball from his 2021 season and one fastball from his 2022 debut over and over (and over and over and over) again. Here are the clips in question. First, a called strike last April:
Next, a foul tip from Tuesday:
I’m hardly an expert here, but I noticed several differences. First, he’s more to the third-base side of the rubber. Second, at the peak of his lead leg’s lift, his glove position is meaningfully higher. Take a look at the two side-by-side and it’s somewhat obvious, even if the different aspect angles from the two broadcasts keep you from making a straight comparison:
Just before Opening Day, the Brewers played musical chairs with their catching corps in a pair of moves perhaps triggered by losing Pedro Severino to a PED suspension. They made two trades, adding two backstops and subtracting another, and shipping a couple of lower-ranked prospects out as part of the deals. They are:
