Xzavion Curry is a prospect-on-the-rise in the Cleveland organization. A seventh-round pick in 2019 out of Georgia Tech, the 23-year-old right-hander is 8-1 with a 2.23 ERA in 18 starts between Low-A Lynchburg and High-A Lake County. With the lion’s share at the latter, Curry has allowed just 65 hits in 93 innings. Moreover, he’s fanned 118 batters and issued just 16 free passes.

Command is Curry’s forte, but it’s not his only attribute. As our own Eric Longenhagen wrote in early June, the 5-foot-11, 195-pound hurler’s “vertical arm slot creates angle and carry on a fastball that plays well at the letters.” Augmenting Curry’s 91-94 mph four-seamer are a curveball, a slider, and a changeup.

He’s only been a full-time pitcher for a handful of years. Curry came to Georgia Tech as a two-way player, having excelled both on the mound and at short as an Atlanta-area prep. That his college coaches made him a full-time pitcher is a testament to changing times. Curry is African-American, and Black players have historically been channeled into position-player roles. Black pitchers have been at a premium.

“That does enter my mind,” said Curry, who had a 17-inning scoreless streak come to an end earlier this week. “As I go around to different places, and play different teams, I don’t really see a lot of Black pitchers. So that is something I’ve noticed, but as the younger generation goes forward, those guys just keep getting better and better. We have a couple in our organization, and I’m pretty sure we’ll start to see more and more Black pitchers.”

Curry cited a different sport when addressing his plus command. Read the rest of this entry »

The other day, I was listening to an episode of Rates and Barrels, an always informative baseball podcast on The Athletic hosted by Eno Sarris and Derek Van Ripper, and learned something new. The two went over each team’s ‘Location+,’ a metric developed by Max Bay that quantifies pitcher command, with teams like the Brewers, Giants, and Rays recording the highest marks. That’s no surprise; what did surprise me is that the Padres stood out as being uniformly bland, receiving average grades for every pitch type except cutters.

San Diego’s’ pitching staff is underperforming, injured, and recently experienced a change in leadership. But I figured it’s still one of the league’s better ones. Since Location+ is proprietary, I can’t consult the exact numbers, though it did inspire me to look at where Padres pitchers had been locating their pitches. And in doing so, I came to a realization: They might have a four-seam fastball problem.

Pitchers perform differently depending on the count; they’re great when they’re ahead, about average when even, and terrible when behind. Unless a microscopic sample size is involved, this principle applies to pretty much everyone. So when looking at how Padres pitchers have performed by count, these results shouldn’t seem out of the ordinary:

Consider, though, how they compare against the league averages. The Padres are comfortably better than the average pitcher when ahead in the count, but the same can’t be said for other instances. In disadvantageous situations, they seem mediocre at best, and the whole picture is underwhelming. You might have guessed where I’m going with this, but basically, the idea is that four-seam fastballs are to blame. Here are the wOBAs against them by count, along with where the Padres rank league-wide. I’ve also included xwOBA to isolate the effects of batted ball luck:

As the kids say, this ain’t it. A .193 wOBA against four-seamers once ahead in the count is great. But a whopping .500 wOBA after falling behind is… not so great. The gap does narrow with xwOBA as the metric of choice; after all, part of the Padres’ recent struggles are due to good players underperforming, which is naturally fixable. But there’s a significant gap nonetheless, and it does seem tied to how they are locating their fastballs. For the sake of time and sample size, I focused on the team’s starters with 50 or more innings pitched. If we examine where their fastballs have ended up, perhaps we can also analyze why they have been hit hard.

Alright, enough talk. You’re here for the meat and potatoes. First up is Blake Snell, whose fastball locations I categorized by count type and batter handedness, presented from the pitcher’s point of view:

You can see that he likes to live higher up when ahead in the count, which is ideal, since batters are more likely to chase. Otherwise, however, Snell’s fastballs are heading straight down the pipe. Even his higher fastballs are still squarely in the strike zone; with the amount of ride he generates, he can afford to climb the ladder more often, a feat he accomplished in previous seasons. He’s also all over the place, which the wide contours illustrate. The command isn’t quite there, and it shows.

Next is Yu Darvish, the Padres’ other ace. Unlike Snell, his four-seamer isn’t his primary pitch, but it still accounts for around 20% of his repertoire. Another detail to note is the wOBA against his four-seamer by month:

• April: .328
• May: .178
• June: .066
• July: .398
• August: .513

After appearing invincible in June, the four-seamer has spiraled out of control in recent months. Because the downward trend coincides with the crackdown on sticky stuff, though, it’s easy to think Darvish’s heater has become worse. That’s true, but not markedly so. An average spin rate of 2,577 rpm before the June 15 ultimatum is now down to 2,473, and it only cost Darvish about an inch of ride, which isn’t all that significant.

There hasn’t been a change to how he’s locating his heater, either. But maybe there should, because Darvish seems like another pitcher who isn’t capitalizing on the vertical movement he generates:

When ahead in the count, Darvish is hitting the outside corner against lefties and righties alike, but besides that, there’s not much else in terms of location. And like Snell before, the high fastballs aren’t really all that high. The contours are also wide and scattered across the strike zone, which might suggest a lack of strategy. I could be reading too much into it, but even at a glance, those heat maps aren’t very appealing.

Joe Musgrove is similar to Darvish, in that the four-seamer acts as a secondary pitch but is nonetheless an integral part of his arsenal. Without it, his fantastic breaking pitches probably aren’t as attractive. So how does he locate the heater? Here’s a look:

That’s better! Those ahead in the count fastballs, they’re up (sort of), but at least they aren’t centered around the heart of the zone. I also appreciate how Musgrove is seemingly exploring the bottom third of the zone when behind, as a way to sneak in a called strike or two.

In his case, though, the stuff is arguably a greater issue than command. Despite an elite raw spin rate, Musgrove doesn’t actually generate much vertical movement on his heater; in fact, it’s one of the league’s worst relative to his velocity. This is presumably why he has continued to shy away from it, gradually replacing his four-seamers with cutters and more breaking balls. Maybe right now demonstrates the best usage of it; I’m not entirely sure. But among Padres starting pitchers, his fastball woes are the least severe.

Then we move onto the youngsters, Chris Paddack and Ryan Weathers. To avoid beating the same drum for too long, I’ll sum up Paddack with words: He probably can and should live up in the zone more often, but there’s been a snag in his stuff. After a solid rookie campaign, his fastball lost a ton of vertical break in 2020, and as far I can tell, he’s still working toward returning to those 2019 levels. The ERA and dearth of strikeouts this season are concerning, but it’s doubtful he’s this ineffective of a starter moving forward. We’ll give him a pass.

On the other hand, Weathers sticks out like a sore thumb. It’s okay that this is his first season in the big leagues. It’s not okay that every pitch he has — fastball, slider, and changeup — ends up in a terrible spot. He’ll figure it out as he accumulates innings and experience, but for now, here’s a slice of reality for the Padres:

Those aren’t good areas to place a fastball even with superb movement, which unfortunately Weathers has lacked so far.

But let’s put everything we’ve explored into context. What’s an example of good fastball command, and how does that turn out when visualized? Originally, I’d planned a comparison between the Giants’ and Padres’ fastball locations, then scrapped it after realizing how daunting the task would be. There’s a useful remnant, though. Below is a heat map of Johnny Cueto’s four-seamers this season:

It’s the year 2021, and Cueto has a higher whiff rate and a better run value on his four-seamer than Snell. Yes, Cueto uses his less frequently, but consider where they’ve ended up. Ahead in the count, those fastballs are perched right on top of the strike zone, with a tendency to veer away from right-handed hitters. Naturally, they aren’t as high up when the count is even, but remember, that’s where Snell roamed after getting ahead, not even. And even when behind in the count, Cueto has done a solid job of avoiding the bottom third of the zone.

If you buy pitch location as a reason for the Padres’ pitching woes, their unexpected dismissal of Larry Rothschild makes a bit more sense. There’s not much a coach can do about a pitcher’s stuff; no decree will magically add three inches of movement to a slider. Location, however, is within his realm of control. To wit, Mets pitchers in 2018 went from generally avoiding the inner half to thriving there, which then-pitching coach Dave Eiland had emphasized. Over time, perhaps the Padres realized Rothschild’s own philosophy was doing more harm than good.

I’m not 100% sure if location, let alone fastball location, is the main culprit. Heat maps are hardly an exact science; they’re approximations of a pitcher’s command whose gaps are colored in by a model and charted. They also don’t factor in pitch sequencing, another element a pitching coach could influence. So maybe this is all wrong! But two facts remain true: (a) the Padres, in general, haven’t been able to avoid dangerous fastball locations; and (b) their fastballs are either getting smacked or taken for balls. If they do indeed need help, it needs to come fast.

Shohei Ohtani does something amazing virtually every time he sets foot on a baseball field, and Thursday was no exception. Leading off the afternoon’s contest against the Orioles in Camden Yards, he connected with Keegan Akin’s second pitch of the day, a hanging curveball in the middle of the zone, and hit a towering homer:

It wasn’t just the fact that this was Ohtani’s 41st homer of the year, extending his major league lead, or that it was the third time he’s led off a game with a homer, which he did on June 25 against the Rays in Tampa Bay and on August 14 against the Astros in Anaheim. No, what stood out to these eyes was the combination of the Statcast specs — a 45-degree launch angle and a 110.7-mph exit velocity — on this shot that made it such a majestic drive, and one that particularly caught the eye of this launch angle aficionado.

I have a thing for what I’ve sometimes termed “launch angle porn,” one that predates the Statcast era. Even amid the unending barrage of home runs and their resultant highlights, I find that the visceral thrill of watching the beginning of a sky-scraping home run is the best part. Particularly when viewed on a two-dimensional screen of whatever size, we have no idea of the final distance that struck sphere will travel, but after the sight and sound of contact — and particularly, the mellifluous melody of a ball hitting the sweet spot of a wooden bat — launch angle is the first feedback we get, whether or not there’s a number attached to that steep ascent. As for exit velocity and distance, those come later, whether it’s a couple of seconds after when we see where that ball lands, or once the Statcast numbers are in.

Wherever you sit along the spectrum of baseball observers, from newcomer through casual fan, diehard, junkie, nerd, and professional, you are by no means obligated to care about such numbers. But if you’re the type that gets a kick out of at least an occasional peek at them, not for their own sake but because they increase our understanding of the game (and of ourselves): welcome to the club, and to today’s tour of the season-to-date’s Statcast extremes. This ride isn’t for everyone, but if it’s your thing, buckle up.

Read the rest of this entry »

Position: Data Engineer

Department: Baseball Operations

Reports To: Director, Baseball Systems

Job Summary:
The Data Engineer is primarily responsible for designing and developing data pipelines and helping to ensure high quality data is readily available to the Padres R&D and Systems teams. The role is responsible for working internally to optimize proprietary data as well as helping to build out the ingestion of third party data from a variety of vendors. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, we explored the roster depth of the American League playoff contenders, identifying the strengths and weaknesses that might prove decisive down the stretch for the teams whose playoff odds sit above 10%. Today, we’ll do the same for the National League squads with October ambitions.

National League East

Atlanta Braves
Strengths: Atlanta’s slow and steady climb into first place has involved a considerable amount of roster management. One side effect of all the maneuvers that have gotten them where they are is significant depth. During Travis d’Arnaud’s absence, the team learned that William Contreras is a capable big league catcher. They filled their considerable outfield holes with Joc Pederson, Jorge Soler, and Adam Duvall, while Cristian Pache, who flamed out early in the season, has finally gotten hot at Triple-A Gwinnett and should be a nice September addition. The Gwinnett infield is packed with players who have big league experience, like Jason Kipnis and Ryan Goins. The return of Huascar Ynoa, with Ian Anderson not far behind, creates a sudden bevy of rotation options. Read the rest of this entry »

A month ago, things were fine. After the games of July 17, the Padres were 55-40, hanging on to the periphery of the NL West chase. Five games back of the Giants, they didn’t have a ton of hope — our odds gave them a 10.4% chance of winning the division — but they were close enough to dream, and a 5.5-game edge in the Wild Card race meant they had a 92.3% overall chance of reaching the playoffs. Today, that number is down to 46.3%. Yikes!

It didn’t happen overnight. By looking at the slow decline of their chances, I think we might learn a thing or two about what went wrong, and maybe get a sense of what they’ll need to do the rest of the year to avoid plummeting all the way out of the postseason, an outcome that felt downright inconceivable before their recent swoon.

July 24
Record since July 17: 3-3
FG Playoff Odds: 92.3%
Wild Card Lead: 5.5 games

Things were looking up! A huge group of reinforcements had just come off the injured list, as Drew Pomeranz, Blake Snell, Yu Darvish, Ryan Weathers, and Austin Nola all returned to action. On the field, the team fended off some NL East opposition — Nationals, Braves, and Marlins — and kept pace in the standings. Even better news: the trade deadline was approaching fast, and there’s no one better to add to a team than AJ Preller. The Padres were linked to everyone, and after their offseason frenzy, every rumor seemed credible. The playoffs seemed all but a certainty; the real question was whether they could catch the teams ahead of them in the West. Read the rest of this entry »

Fernando Tatis Jr. is now an outfielder for the San Diego Padres. Despite his recent stint on the injured list — his third of the season, and his second related to his shoulder — he might end up collecting the NL MVP provided he can stay productive and healthy, all while moving away from the only position he’s played in professional baseball. In his return to action on Sunday, he raised his wRC+ to 172 and got his first playing time in right field. There wasn’t much to be gleaned from the four balls hit his way, however, leaving us to wonder how well he’ll handle the position going forward. Mike Petriello at MLB.com has covered the unprecedented nature of this move, but I want to take a look at what we can actually expect from Tatis defensively. I’m not the first to consider the question. Last week, Michael Ajeto highlighted Tatis’ defensive ability in an article for Baseball Prospectus and delved into the analytical precedent for shortstops who have recently made the conversion to the outfield. Today, I’ll look at what we might predict about Tatis’ outfield defense given some of the other data we have about his speed.

But let’s set the stage. The biggest flaw in Tatis’ game since his debut has been his defense. After a 2019 characterized by 18 errors and poor defensive metrics, he seemed right the ship last season. But his defense has since regressed, and while his -4.3 Def runs at shortstop this year hasn’t made him unplayable at the position, it’s certainly not ideal. Still, this move wasn’t necessitated by his play at short, but rather by Tatis’ recurrent shoulder problems and the Padres’ stated desire to shield him from further injury, though as Ajeto noted in his piece, whether that will actually work is an open question.

That’s how we ended up with Tatis in the outfield. Before getting too far ahead of ourselves, however, it’s important to know how his numbers at short are derived. His penchant for throwing errors is well documented and they do serve to drop his DRS, UZR, and Outs Above Average (OAA) considerably. We can peek at the component parts of UZR to separate the errors from Tatis’ range, but we aren’t even close to a three-year sample and thinking about UZR sample size is a Pandora’s Box that should be kept closed for today, anyhow. For our purposes, we’re not going to pay much attention to throwing errors or even Tatis’ range on grounders as a shortstop. The baseline we care about is how well he can play right field and quick twitch and speed are the parts of the shortstop skillset that seem mostly likely to translate to the outfield grass. Read the rest of this entry »

Particularly when measured against their competitors in the NL West, the Padres did not have a very good trade deadline — or even a good July. While they added depth to their infield, outfield, and bullpen with a trio of trades, none of those were impact moves. Everything they did was overshadowed by their failure to reach the finish line on a deal for Max Scherzer that was reported as “close” by multiple reporters on Thursday night. Ultimately, though, the three-time Cy Young winner went to the division rival Dodgers in a move that turn(er)ed out to be bigger than anyone expected. Beyond that, the Padres could only watch as the Giants landed slugger Kris Bryant. And to add injuries to insult, the deadline dust had barely settled when San Diego had to place both Fernando Tatis Jr. and Chris Paddack on the Injured List on Saturday.

In his post-deadline ZiPS roundup from Monday, Dan Szymborski illustrated the summer swap meet’s impact on the Playoff Odds for each individual team. His estimates showed the Giants as the NL West’s biggest winner at the deadline, with the Dodgers winners (albeit with diminishing returns given where they started), and the Padres clear losers:

All of which is to say that the Padres hurt their chances with missed opportunities, and that was before they suffered the one-two punch of the Paddack and Tatis injuries. Chronologically, the Paddack injury came first, but as Tatis is the Padres’ marquee player, we’ll begin there. The 22-year-old shortstop once again suffered a left shoulder subluxation (partial dislocation) while sliding into third base against the Rockies on Friday night. After he singled in his first-inning plate appearance, he had headed to second on Manny Machado’s hot smash to third baseman Ryan McMahon, then lit out for third when the ball ball squirted away from McMahon while trying to transfer it to his glove. Tatis slid feet first, but in attempting to evade shortstop Brendan Rodgers‘ tag, he twisted, caught his left shoulder, and immediately grabbed his arm after being tagged out. Read the rest of this entry »

What a ride this year’s deadline was. All told, we had 75 prospects move in the last month. They are ranked below, with brief scouting reports written by me and Kevin Goldstein. Most of the deals these prospects were a part of were analyzed at length on this site. An index of those pieces can be found here, or by clicking the hyperlink in the “Trade” column below. I’ve moved all of the players listed here to their new orgs over on The Board, so you can click through to see where they rank among their new teammates. Our farm rankings, which now update live, also reflect these changes, so you can see where teams’ systems stack up post-deadline.

A couple of quick notes before I get to the rankings. We’ve included a few post-prospect players here (those marked in blue) so you can get an idea of where we value them now as opposed to where we had them at their prospect peak. Those players, as well as the Compensatory pick the Rockies will receive after they extend Trevor Story a qualifying offer and he signs elsewhere, are highlighted below. We had closer to 40 prospects (and 23 Players to be Named Later) traded last year, with the PTBNL number inflated by 2020’s COVID-related transaction rules. The backfields are not well-represented here, with just four prospects who have yet to play in full-season ball. Two of those are currently in the DSL and have no official domestic pro experience, though Alberto Ciprian has played stateside for instructs/extended spring training. Now on to the rankings. Read the rest of this entry »

The San Diego Padres made big moves in the offseason in an attempt to chase down the Dodgers. They traded Luis Patiño, Blake Hunt, Cole Wilcox and Francisco Mejía to acquire 2018 AL Cy Young award winner Blake Snell from the Tampa Bay Rays. Less than 24 hours later, they traded Zach Davies, Reginald Preciado, Owen Caissie, Ismael Mena, and Yeison Santana to the Cubs for 2020 NL Cy Young runner-up Yu Darvish and his personal catcher Victor Caratini. They turned Hudson Head, David Bednar, Omar Cruz, Drake Fellows into Joe Musgrove in a three-way trade with the Mets and Pirates. Earlier this week they kicked off trade deadline season trading Tucupita Marcano, Jack Suwinski and Michell Miliano to the Pirates for All-Star second baseman Adam Frazier. That flurry of deals alone has seen the Padres part with their second, seventh, eighth, 13th, 15th, 21st, 26th, 28th and 52nd ranked prospects, and send their 2020 second and third round draft picks to other teams for major-league ready talent.

When laid out like that, it seems less surprising that the Padres were outgunned when it came to the deadline’s blockbusters, like the “super-ultra-mega-juggernaut deal” that sent Max Scherzer and Trea Turner from the Nationals to the Dodgers. But the Padres were not done dealing just because they missed out on the starter they craved. With three minutes before the deadline, they made a smaller move, adding center fielder Jake Marisnick from the Cubs. Anderson Espinoza, a 40+ FV prospect who slots in at No. 29 in the Cubs’ system, is headed back to Chicago. Read the rest of this entry »