As the Orioles emerge from their long hibernation, it’s easy to see the things they’ve done well as an organization. They’re great at developing relief pitchers. They can walk through a public park and pluck a future star infielder from a tree. But starting pitching has not come as easily. The front end of the rotation lacks a pitcher like Gerrit Cole or Kevin Gausman, and they’ve had to bring in veterans like Cole Irvin and Kyle Gibson to carry some of the load. No doubt this is part of the reason they’re being linked to Shohei Ohtani, who for all the dinger sockin’ he does is still the best pitcher on the trade market at the deadline.

But the cupboard is hardly bare, thanks to pitchers like Kyle Bradish. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, we turn our attention to the second base Killers. While still focusing on teams that meet the loose definition of contenders (a .500 record or Playoff Odds of at least 10%), and that have gotten about 0.6 WAR or less out of a position thus far — which prorates to 1.0 WAR over a full season — this year I have incorporated our Depth Charts’ rest-of-season WAR projections into the equation for an additional perspective. Sometimes that may suggest that the team will clear the bar by a significant margin, but even so, I’ve included them here because the team’s performance at that spot is worth a look.

As noted previously, some of these situations are more dire than others, particularly when taken in the context of the rest of a team’s roster. I don’t expect every team to go out and track down an upgrade before the August 1 deadline, and I’m less concerned with the solutions – many of which have more moving parts involved than a single trade — than the problems. Unless otherwise indicated, all statistics are through Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

I am a big fan of trading for reinforcements well ahead of the trade deadline. If you can add a piece that will make even a small difference, then do it early if the deal makes sense. That is exactly what the Orioles have done in acquiring Shintaro Fujinami from the A’s, adding to what was already a league-best bullpen led by Félix Bautista and Yennier Cano. In return, Baltimore sent 26-year-old prospect Easton Lucas to Oakland.

Before jumping into Fujinami’s profile and potential, let’s learn a little about Lucas. He initially came to Baltimore’s system from Miami in a trade for veteran infielder Jonathan Villar in December 2019. Since 2021, he has worked his way from High-A to Triple-A as a reliever, peaking at 56.2 innings last season. But after looking the best he has in his career with a 2.66 FIP and 38.7 K% to start the year in Double-A, he’s struggled after stepping up to Triple-A, with a 7.31 FIP and 4.61 ERA in 13 innings.

Even with these recent struggles, there is reason to believe Lucas can be a legitimate middle reliever in the big leagues. Per Eric Longenhagen, his average fastball velocity has jumped significantly, from 90.7 mph to 94.5. He also utilizes two slow breaking balls: a slider that was in the high-70s, and a curve that was in the mid-70s. But like his fastball, those pitches have seen a velocity jump as well; the curve has turned into a low-80s slider, and the old slider has tightened up to become a high-80s cutter. That is essentially a 10-tick bump in both breaking balls. With these changes, Lucas has also faded his changeup usage. Long story short, he is now a four-seamer/cutter/slider guy with a significant stuff boost, giving him more of a shot to be a big leaguer.

Let’s pivot back to Baltimore’s side of things. On the surface, Fujinami has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball this season. He began the year as a starter and allowed 24 earned runs in under 15 innings, walking virtually everyone he faced. He has been much better since moving to the bullpen, posting a 3.90 FIP in 34.1 innings, but much of that performance is very recent. In May and June, he still had a FIP over 4.00 with a BB% north of 10.

After back-to-back rough performances at the end of June against the Blue Jays and Yankees, Fujinami changed his pitch mix, and it seems as if he has settled in as a four-seamer/splitter pitcher. He used his cutter a few times in a recent appearance, but it’s clear that his plan is to use a two-pitch mix. How has that worked out? Let’s look at the four-seamer swinging-strike leaders in July:

Obviously the sample size here isn’t anything significant, but this bump deserves attention. Despite consistent four-seamer usage — between the high-50s and low-60s — Fujinami’s four-seamer swinging-strike rate hadn’t broken 26% in any month. The pitch wasn’t effective, but it has become a weapon in the last few weeks.

As I already mentioned, Fujinami has used a two-pitch mix of late, but how have the fastball and splitter adapted since his recent surge? (I didn’t include his velocity increase between these two time periods because that is largely due to him no longer starting; his fastball jumped two ticks and his splitter jumped one as a reliever.)

At 93.3 mph, nobody throws a splitter harder than Fujinami other than Jhoan Duran. On top of that, you can see some concrete changes in the pitch’s shape to make it play better with the four-seamer. Most interestingly, the 1:47 tilt on the pitch has moved closer to the four-seamer’s movement. That complicates things for hitters: if Fujinami is throwing both pitches out of similar release points with indistinguishable tilt differences, hitters are going to have trouble either getting their barrel on the splitter or catching up to the heater. The high velocity combination doesn’t give you much wiggle room to figure out where each pitch is headed.

Let’s see what this looks like in practice. Here is an at-bat from last week against Alex Kirilloff:

Pitch 1 (0-0, four-seamer)

Pitch 2 (0-1, splitter)

Pitch 3 (0-2, splitter)

Pitch 4 (0-2, four-seamer)

From Fujinami’s perspective, it doesn’t get any better than this. Kirilloff got his best pitch to hit in the 0–0 count and passed it up. After that, he had no chance. The 0–1 splitter is a nice example of how even a little bit of difference in movement and location can affect a hitter’s swing. The vertical orientation of the splitter was enough for Kirilloff to pull off and chop a foul ball. On the following pitch, Fujinami showed how he can induce a little more horizontal break than a hitter would expect from his release point. It’s not overwhelming, but it’s enough to fool Kirilloff and force an emergency hack. Then, on the final pitch, he blew Kirilloff away with triple digits above the zone. This is perfect execution and sequencing, and it’s exactly what the Orioles will be looking for.

Baltimore has developed a great reputation when it comes to helping relievers get the most out of their stuff and body. If anybody is equipped to help a high-octane reliever with a four-seamer/splitter combination, it’s the Orioles. I wouldn’t be surprised if Fujinami ends up making a slight tweak or two upon his arrival, but I’m confident that would be focused on propping up the two-pitch mix that he has effectively established in the last couple of weeks.

In a race for a playoff spot, every edge matters. Yet all too often, for reasons that extend beyond a player’s statistics, managers and general managers fail to make the moves that could improve their teams, allowing subpar production to fester at the risk of smothering a club’s postseason hopes. In Baseball Prospectus’ 2007 book It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over, I compiled a historical All-Star squad of ignominy, identifying players at each position whose performances had dragged their teams down in tight races: the Replacement-Level Killers. I’ve revisited the concept numerous times at multiple outlets and have adapted it at FanGraphs in an expanded format since 2018.

When it comes to defining replacement level play, we needn’t hew too closely to exactitude. Any team that’s gotten less than 0.6 WAR from a position to this point — prorating to 1.0 over a full season — is considered fair game. Sometimes, acceptable or even above-average defense (which may depend upon which metric one uses) coupled with total ineptitude on offense is enough to flag a team. Sometimes a club may be well ahead of replacement level but has lost a key contributor to injury; sometimes the reverse is true, but the team hasn’t yet climbed above that first-cut threshold. As with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of hardcore pornography, I know replacement level when I see it. Read the rest of this entry »

Spencer Strider currently leads all qualified starters in strikeout rate. When I learned that bit of information, my immediate reaction was, “Wow, that tiny little guy’s on track to throw enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, good for him!”

But Strider is way out in front of the field. His K% is 38.9%; Kevin Gausman is second at 32.6%, with a small group of pitchers clustered behind him in the low 30s. Strider isn’t particularly walk-averse — his BB% is 40th-lowest among 67 qualified starters — and yet his K-BB% of 31.4% would be the fifth-best strikeout rate in the league.

I don’t want to say this is happening without anyone batting an eye — here we are, after all, batting our eyes at Strider’s strikeout rate. But we’ve become so inured to this kind of performance, and so quickly, that it’s worth taking a step back to consider the gravity of what he’s doing. Read the rest of this entry »

There are two predominant fastball types in the majors these days: the four-seamer and the sinker. The cutter usually gets categorized as a fastball too, and for some pitchers, like Corbin Burnes and Kenley Jansen, it certainly is one. Then again, most pitchers use their cutter as a secondary or tertiary offering, and the average cutter comes in at 89 mph; that’s closer to the average changeup than the average four-seamer. The cutter defies simple classification. Then there’s the split-finger fastball, which is nothing more than a misnomer. It’s an offspeed pitch, no doubt about it, and therefore “splitter” is the more widely accepted label nowadays.

So, back to those two fastballs. The four-seamer is essentially the “throw it as hard as you can” ball; if you hear someone use the generic term “fastball” to describe a particular pitch, this is the one they’re talking about. In terms of grip, a four-seamer isn’t all that different from the way any other fielder throws the baseball. The sinker, on the other hand, is a more specialized weapon. As the name suggests, it has more movement than a four-seam fastball, and it’s more useful for inducing weak contact than blowing the ball past the opposing batter. Yet, modern pitchers have been taking that “throw it as hard as you can” approach with their sinkers as well. Over the past four seasons, the average sinker is only 0.6 mph slower than the average four-seamer.

Thus far in 2023, 52 starting pitchers have crossed the 50-inning threshold while using both a four-seam fastball and a sinker at least 3% of the time. Of those 52, 83% throw both pitches within 1 mph of one another. All but two throw both pitches within 2 mph of one another. As you might have guessed, I’m here to write about the two exceptions, the two starting pitchers who throw their four-seamer and sinker nearly 3 mph apart: Shohei Ohtani and Dean Kremer. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, in his update on pitch mix, my colleague Davy Andrews told a tale as old as time (or at least 2008, when the pitch-tracking era began): fastball usage is on the decline, largely to the benefit of sliders (and sweepers). But this year, there’s a new wrinkle: cutter usage is on the rise, too.

Per Statcast, pitchers are turning to cutters more than they have in any season since 2008. That usage is still at just 7.6%, but the year-over-year jump of 0.7% is the second highest on record. Plus, as Davy and the folks over at Prospects Live put it, a lot of the cutter’s value lies purely in its mere existence; it doesn’t have to be used a ton to be a worthwhile offering. That’s because, out of a pitcher’s hand, the cutter bears resemblance to both a fastball and a slider. When pitchers are struggling to tunnel their heater and slide-piece, the problem might be that there’s simply too large a movement and/or velocity gap between the two offerings — one that a cutter can bridge. As long as the hitter has to think not only about the dissimilar fastball and slider, but also a cutter, it can make a big difference, even if the cutter doesn’t show up all that often.

Along those lines, horizontal movement gaps between fastballs and sliders have only grown in the age of the sweeper. The new “riding slider” also tends to have larger platoon splits than other similar breakers, which is where the cutter can come in handy yet again due to its relative platoon neutrality. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday night, an eight-run seventh-inning outburst against the Yankees catalyzed another Orioles win, bringing their record to 32–17, second best in the majors. Among the highlights in the frame: Adam Frazier brought home three with a shot off the foul pole, and Gunnar Henderson plated two with a pinch-hit double. Understandably lost in the scrum was the first hit in the rally, a 109.6 mph scorcher off the bat of Austin Hays that snuck through the infield.

With two hits in four at-bats Wednesday, Hays brought his season slash up to .308/.351/.484 and his wRC+ to 131. The excitement that has come along with the Baby Birds — namely Henderson, Adley Rutschman, and Grayson Rodriguez — has overshadowed what looks to be a breakout season for the left fielder despite his own former prospect status. It’s easy to forget that back in 2017, Hays homered 32 times as a 21-year-old between High-A and Double-A, earning a call-up without a single Triple-A appearance. He was the first 2016 draftee to make the majors. Read the rest of this entry »

Coming into the season, two players were the obvious front runners for their respective league’s Rookie of the Year award: Corbin Carroll and Gunnar Henderson. Not only were they each elite in the minors in 2022, they both came up to help their big league club late in the season and continued their incredible all-around play. Carroll hasn’t skipped a beat in 2023. He has a 140 wRC+ and 13 stolen bases, and has played good defense. But despite posting a 125 wRC+ in 132 plate appearances in 2022 — a performance that suggested he would hit, hit, and just keep on hitting — Henderson has struggled so far. After 161 plate appearances this year, he sits at a 103 wRC+. The holes that were present in his game in the minor leagues before 2022 have popped back up, leading to a 31.1 K% and a bottom-decile whiff rate.

Let’s go over a few notes from Eric Longenhagen’s offseason report on Henderson. I want to focus on three things: a worse than average in-zone whiff rate, a surgically precise approach, and huge all-fields power. For better or worse, these three aspects of his profile are all holding up almost perfectly. Right now, Henderson’s in-zone whiffs are indeed below average. This year, the league-wide in-zone whiff rate on fastballs is 16.9%. Henderson’s mark is 33.3% after being much better last year at 23.4%. Now let’s go to the good parts. His approach still seems to be surgically precise. His 20.4% chase rate is in the 89th percentile, so it’s not like pitchers are suddenly getting him to leave his ideal zones, and his highly impressive 16.1% walk rate has carried his offensive production this season. Lastly, his all-fields power is still present. He has two 400-foot home runs to left field and another that went so deep to right field in Kaufmann Stadium that the camera could hardly track it. I say all of this because it means Henderson is still who we knew him to be. But the main hole in his game is being exposed more in this year’s sample than last year’s. That’s what this piece will explore.

When such a talented hitter experiences a 10 percentage point jump in his whiff rate on fastballs in the zone, my mind immediately goes to two things: swing decisions and mechanical changes. I’ve already mentioned that it seems like Henderson’s approach hasn’t faltered out of the zone, but let’s double check that the trend holds in the zone – particularly at the top of the zone, since that’s the potential hole in his swing that we already have knowledge of. Interestingly enough, his swing rate has significantly decreased in the upper third from last season. In 2022, he swung at 72.4% of the pitches he saw in this zone; this year, it’s only 37.8%. Given that we know Henderson’s approach is so sound, it makes sense that he would try and cut down on swings in this zone. However, despite this logical downtick, Henderson has nearly doubled his Whiff% from 28.9% to 52.6%. This brings me right back to the other part of the investigation: his swing mechanics. Below are two swings from 2022, followed by another two from 2023. Each pitch is a fastball in the upper third:

2022

2023

The two swings from 2022 were both barrels hit over 100 mph. Eric noted in his report that one of Henderson’s key skills is his ability to let the ball travel deep into the zone before driving it to the opposite field. Both swings from 2022 displayed this ability, and the one against Justin Verlander’s nicely located four-seamer was even more impressive. If you have a hole in your swing and can still occasionally barrel the ball when pitchers attack that hole, you’re going to be alright. If you can’t get to that barrel, like what’s happening so far this year, then it becomes more of a concern.

Henderson’s swing against Reynaldo López wasn’t necessarily a bad one. It was hit at an ideal 27-degree launch angle. But it wasn’t hit nearly hard enough (88.7 mph) and resulted in a can of corn fly out. Similarly, against Josiah Gray, Henderson couldn’t get to quality contact and fouled the pitch straight back. I picked these two swings because each pitcher’s four-seamer hasn’t performed well this season (> .500 SLG%). It’s my quick way of showing that Henderson isn’t getting to four-seamers with sub-optimal pitch shapes. These are pitches that you’d expect most good hitters to have a decent shot at barreling up, especially one with Henderson’s skill and power. But he is either missing them altogether or not squaring them up.

Earlier this week, I talked about how Vertical Bat Angle (VBA), the angle of a hitter’s barrel at impact, could be a factor in explaining these types of fluctuations in a hitter’s performance and habits. However, this most likely isn’t the case with the struggling rookie. His VBA last September/October was 34.5 degrees; in the first month of this season, it was 34.6. Instead, I’d like to focus on a different measurement of bat path called Vertical Entry Angle (VEA), also courtesy of SwingGraphs, and its relationship with VBA. SwingGraphs defines VEA as the angle of the bat 83 milliseconds before contact, but for simplicity’s sake, it’s basically the angle of the bat right at the start of the downswing.

In this piece, D.K. Willardson presents data explaining how excessive flattening in bat angle from VEA to VBA can be a bat speed killer. This makes intuitive sense. From a pitching perspective, we know that having an asymmetrical relationship between the direction of your left and right arm can be a velocity killer. Luis Castillo needs a side-swiping glove to match his side arm slot, and Verlander needs a vertical glove tuck to match his high arm slot. Doing otherwise might kill their velocity. From a bat speed perspective, a hitter entering the zone at an extreme vertical angle and adjusting their bat too much to a flat angle can throw off the connection between their torso and hips and effectively decrease their rotational velocity. Now, let’s focus on how that relates to Henderson.

Last year, the degree of flattening between Henderson’s VEA and VBA was 15.4 degrees (49.9 to 34.5). In April, that number increased to 17.2 (51.8 to 34.6). The question is, did that result in any batted ball differences for Henderson? Well, yes it did. His max exit velocity is down 1.7 mph from last year, while his average exit velocity is down 1 mph. These fluctuations seem small, but Henderson was already teetering quite close to flattening out too much. Per SwingGraphs, that gap between VEA and VBA is the 11th highest in all of baseball this year and puts him next to other struggling hitters such as Alec Bohm and Trent Grisham. For Henderson, a slight dip in bat speed is a pretty darn good explanation for why he might struggle to cover the top of the zone. This might strike you as a bit too theoretical, but the results (quality of contact and whiffs) both track well with this explanation.

So how might the Orioles communicate this information to him (or another hitter with a similar issue)? For that, we’ll look at some slo-mo video. The first clip is a slowed down version of the swing against Verlander, while the second is the swing against López:

Unfortunately, I’m not an overlay wizard, so I can’t draw a distinct line at VEA, but the slo-mo video should help you see that the angle of his bat this season is steeper as it begins it descent. Henderson is obviously quite good at adjusting his bat angle according to pitch height, but by starting his entry more vertically, he’s forced to adjust his bat angle even further to get to the plane of the high fastball. All hitters have to adjust their bat angle at the top of the zone, but the more you increase how much you need to adjust it, the more time you spend getting to your ideal angle. The video suggests two potential options. The first is to cue the top of his bat in a different direction than he currently is if he wants to start his entry just a little bit flatter. The second is to slightly adjust his hand setup to start on the plane where he wants to be.

I know, all of this just to say he needs a cue to slightly change his entry into the zone. But with hitters this skilled, small changes are usually the difference between a slump and a hot streak. And it’s not like Henderson is hitting that poorly anyways. It’s more just that he isn’t performing to projections and probably his own expectations, especially when it comes to swing and miss. I expect him to get it going pretty quickly. He is simply too good to not be a force in the already gaudy Orioles lineup.

A big part of this gig early in the season has to do with identifying outliers and regression candidates, either to celebrate the former or warn about the latter. The Statcast-based expected statistics have made this job many orders of magnitude easier than it was a decade ago, so I’ve spent much of the past month looking at the league leaders for xwOBA and the like.

Ryan Mountcastle has been up there. Through Monday’s games, he’s 42nd among qualified hitters in xwOBA, one spot ahead of his teammate Adley Rutschman and two ahead of Alex Bregman. More to the point, his actual wOBA (.298) is 92 points lower than his xwOBA, which is the sixth-biggest discrepancy in the majors among qualified hitters.

Mountcastle has been at least a league-average hitter, by wRC+, in every season of his major league career. Is he just getting unlucky in a small sample? I mean, probably, but that’s not the only reason he’s having a weird year. Read the rest of this entry »