Archive for Teams

Over the course of the last week, the Dodgers placed four players on the disabled list, most in baseball. Andrew Toles, with his torn ACL, would have gone on the DL in any other year, and that might also be true for Adam Liberatore and his strained hamstring. But Kenta Maeda (tightness in hamstring) and Brandon McCarthy (sore left shoulder) are dealing with less debilitating issues. They might not have been placed on the DL if not for the flexibility allowed by the new 10-day option. But has that flexibility really created an explosion in DL usage? What ramifications would that have on the game?

Read the rest of this entry »

I first became acquainted with Charlie Morton while covering the Pittsburgh Pirates as a newspaperman and while conducting research for my non-fiction work Big Data Baseball.

Morton was the first major-league player I encountered who exhibited a real interest in analytics. He developed an appreciation of numbers from his father, Chip, an accountant and former Penn State basketball player. As Morton struggled with inconsistency early in his major-league career — he posted a 6.15 ERA with the Braves as a rookie in 2008 — he turned to PITCHf/x information to better understand his stuff and performance beyond a traditional box score. He found PITCHf/x data and fielding-independent numbers kept him sane. He found advanced statistics and PITCHf/x provided a better baselines of performance to study. His father dove into the data, too, and they often had phone calls discussing the quality of his stuff, the velocity, and horizontal and vertical movement, etc.

Earlier in his career with the Pirates — and with the help of Jim Benedict and Ray Searage — Morton had dropped his arm slot and and adopted the two-seamer as his primary pitch. His new, and present, delivery reminded many of Roy Halladay. The Pirates had Morton watch video of Halladay. And at times, Morton’s stuff — his darting sinker and bending curveball — also resembled former Philadelphia and Toronto ace’s. In Pittsburgh, during the good times, he earned nicknames like “Electric Stuff” and “Ground Chuck.” He posted a 62.9% ground-ball rate in 2013 to go along with a 3.26 ERA and 3.60 FIP. He earned a three-year contract extension after the 2013 season.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Orioles and Red Sox have provided some of the season’s juiciest narrative thus far. Everyone (well, almost everyone) loves a good bit of drama, even when it’s remarkably dumb drama. And even though our postseason odds favor Boston by a considerable margin in the AL East, Baltimore has made a habit in recent years of outperforming their projections. The two teams are going to be going for the jugular against each other for the rest of the season, and it’s going to make for some great baseball.

They may find themselves directly competing off the field, as well. Both teams have dire needs on the left side of the infield. The Red Sox haven’t had a strong third-base presence in some time, and the Orioles are hurting badly at shortstop with J.J. Hardy firmly in his decline phase and contributing just a 38 wRC+ thus far. Boston’s third-base woes are particularly bad this year, given that the cast of characters who have taken the position this year have combined for -0.5 WAR. These two problems don’t initially seem to be all that related. The teams will theoretically be scouring two different trade markets, no?

Maybe, maybe not. The simplest solution for Baltimore would be to just go get a shortstop like Zack Cozart, who’s hitting well and playing for a Reds team that probably isn’t as talented as they’ve looked thus far. However, Cozart is currently the only truly attractive shortstop option on a still-evolving trade market and there are other teams who will likely prefer Cozart over someone like Freddy Galvis. The Orioles also don’t have very much prospect capital with which to work, and could easily be outbid. Therefore a more elegant solution presents itself: moving Manny Machado to short and pursuing someone to play third. Machado is one of the best all-around defenders in the game, and is a natural shortstop. He could do it in a heartbeat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I published a post comparing and contrasting the virtues of a pair of NL left fielders, Kyle Schwarber and Aaron Altherr. They are pretty different kinds of players, but to this point, their career numbers are very similar, and I thought it was an interesting question to consider which of the two you’d rather have going forward.

At the end of the post, I included a series of three polls, asking you to select a range for your view of the future expected performance for both players, as well as asking you to pick which one you’d rather have going forward. The results of those polls should something very close to a down-the-middle split.

When it came down to pick a side, Schwarber won 54/46, so there’s a slight edge to the bat-first, longer track record guy, but it certainly wasn’t any kind of blowout. And when you look at the expected performance buckets, it seems that Schwarber’s slight edge comes down to perceived upside.

A plurality of voters picked the +2 to +3 WAR bucket for both players, with 49% of Altherr’s votes going in that category, compared to 48% of Schwarber’s. There was a pretty large block of you guys that agreed that these guys are both above-average players, but not quite reaching star levels.

The +3 to +4 WAR bucket was the second most common choice for both players, and here, Schwarber pulled ahead slightly, 34% to 30%. Then it was +1 to +2 WAR, with Altherr getting 14% of his votes in that bin versus 9% for Schwarber. +4 to +5 WAR went 6% to 4% for Schwarber, and then +5 or better went 3% to 2% for Schwarber.

So overall, 43% of voters saw Schwarber as a +3 WAR or better player, the legitimate star that he’s been hyped up to be since being taken #4 overall. Only 37% of voters saw Altherr at that same level, and those who weren’t willing to put him in that category didn’t shift to the +2 to +3 WAR category, but instead, saw him as a role player, a fringe starter, effectively not buying into his 2017 performance as a significant indicator of change.

Essentially, the votes indicate that, while similar, you guys see a slightly higher upside with Schwarber. I’m guessing some of those higher-upside votes came from the idea that a new team could use him at first base, and his defensive limitations in left field would go away if Anthony Rizzo wasn’t standing in his way of the position he’s likely best suited for. If you think Schwarber could play a reasonable 1B and hit at a 130 or 140 wRC+ level, then yeah, that +4 to +5 WAR level is definitely reachable.

Altherr’s path to stardom in left field is easier; he just has to hit at a 120 to 130 wRC+ level, and his athleticism should carry the rest of the skillset. But while it was close, it appears that a few more of you buy into Schwarber hitting at a higher level, or changing positions, than see Altherr hitting at that level.

Last September, Corey Dickerson admitted he’d gotten into his own head during his first season with the Tampa Bay Rays. Things hadn’t gone too well. Trying to impress in a new league after putting up an .879 OPS with the Colorado Rockies, the lefty slugger scuffled early, then proceeded to tinker and obsess. He ultimately swatted 24 long balls, but the blasts were accompanied by a .245/.293/.469 slash line and a 24.5% strikeout rate.

This year has been a different story. No longer overanalyzing every unsuccessful at-bat, Dickerson is slashing a lusty .333/.382/.595, with 12 doubles, two triples, and eight home runs, over his first 39 games. He’s doing so despite having played more than half of those contests as a designated hitter, a position at which batters produce slightly worse numbers than when playing the field.

Dickerson discussed his resurgence — including his “let it go” attitude and his weapon of choice — when the Rays played at Fenway Park over the weekend.

———

Dickerson on rebounding from a subpar 2016 season: “I’ve kind of let it go. I’ve gone back to being me instead of trying to do other things. I’m also finally 100% healthy, which I wasn’t last year. That’s not an excuse — everybody battles through stuff — but now I can do everything I want.

“In 2015, I was hurt — I only had 200 at-bats all season — and coming off that, I kind of acted like I didn’t have any. I started off 2016 in a slump. I’d never really been a slump in my career, so I started to chase my tail. I struggled. Finally, at the end of the year, I started to let it go. I was like, ‘OK, if I get out, what’s the biggest deal? I’m going to hit .242 instead of .245?’

Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers are currently riding a six-game winning streak. That’s the longest active streak around! Now, to be fair, three of those wins came against the Padres, who are bad, and the other three came against the A’s, who are more bad than good. And even with the winning streak they’ve pulled off, the Rangers still have one more loss than they have wins. They’re under .500 and eight games out of first. Suffice to say, the Rangers haven’t come sprinting out of the gate.

But it would be easy to look at the Rangers and feel a little disappointed. What if we were to spin things in the other direction? It’s true that, yes, overall, the Rangers have failed to impress. Yet at the same time, it’s impressive that they’re even 19-20, given how things have gone. Rangers fans are probably already acutely aware of what I’m going to discuss, but, it’s time to talk about the top of the Rangers’ roster.

Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s take a look at the standings, shall we? The Diamondbacks are presently sitting in…okay, third place. But while they might be third place in the National League West, they’re also fifth place in the National League, overall, meaning they occupy a playoff spot. In other words, it’s been more of a good start than a bad one. And an encouraging start, given the organizational shake-up between years.

If you’ll remember, coming into the season, the Diamondbacks were defined by what you could call an intriguing post-hype pitching staff. It stood to reason that, if it was going to be a good year, they’d need those pitchers to deliver on the promise they’d had before. And, wouldn’t you know it, but according to the leaderboards, the Diamondbacks are fifth in baseball in pitching-staff WAR. They’re first among starting rotations. The effectiveness has been there, even despite Shelby Miller’s injury.

About that! Miller’s absence opened up a spot. One turn was given to Braden Shipley. The other three turns have gone to Zack Godley. Over three starts and 18.2 innings, Godley’s got 19 strikeouts, with four runs allowed. It’s not so much that Godley has been unhittable. It’s that he’s been good, and better than before. Godley, who’s never been a Baseball America top-10 organizational prospect. There’s a new exciting pitcher on the staff.

Read the rest of this entry »

You probably don’t need much of an introduction to Kyle Schwarber. His story has been told numerous times, and he gained legendary status through his late-season return from ACL surgery, hitting .412 in the World Series to help the Cubs end their 108-year World Series drought. Schwarber is probably one of the most well known young players in baseball.

Depending on how frequently you read FanGraphs, you may be aware of Aaron Altherr. Jeff wrote about him in March when he was having a strong spring, trying to earn more time than his slotted 4th outfielder job on the Phillies would give him, and I wrote about his breakout performance last week. But while Altherr has gotten some notice for his strong performance the last few weeks, he’s still a relatively obscure young outfielder.

But despite their significantly different levels of recognition, they may be more similar than their reputations would suggest. So today, I wanted to do something of a thought experiment, and gauge how our readership sees the pair, as of May 16th, 2017.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hunter Renfroe had a huge game last night. The Padres outfielder hammered a two-run double in the second inning and followed with a two-run homer in the 10th. The latter was a walk-off, giving San Diego a 6-5 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. The blast was his seventh on the season, tying him with Josh Bell and Cody Bellinger for the lead among NL rookies.

Renfroe’s overall numbers aren’t great — his slash line is .217/.273/.406 — but he’s showing signs of breaking out. Over his last six games, the 25-year-old former first-round pick is 6-for-18, and four of those safeties have gone for extra bases. Every bit as notable is the fact that he’s drawn seven free passes. Selectivity has never been a strong suit for the slugger, but given his ability to propel baseballs long distances, a more-discerning eye could very well be his ticket to stardom.

There’s no questioning his raw power. The Mississippi State product left the yard 30 times last year for Triple-A El Paso while capturing Pacific Coast League MVP honors. He added four more dingers after a late-September call-up. Six of the 11 home runs Renfroe has hit in a big-league uniform have traveled over 400 feet.

Renfroe discussed his power-laden gap-to-gap approach, and his views on launch-angle data, prior to the start of the regular season.

———

Renfroe on launch-angle data: “I’m obviously aware of it, but the ball is moving. It’s not sitting on a tee, so you can’t stand in the box and think about things like launch angle when the ball is coming at you 98 mph. You hit it, and whatever it does… you know? Hopefully you hit it on the barrel at a good angle, and it makes it over the fence, or at least goes for a double, or even a single.

Read the rest of this entry »

CLEVELAND – Miguel Sano knows what he wants.

In the visiting team quarters in Progressive Field, there’s a small kitchen — like something you might find in a World War II-era submarine — that offers players various pre- and post-game sustenance. On Sunday morning, Sano, apparently unsatisfied with the options, disappeared from the clubhouse and reappeared with rectangular aluminum carry-out pan containing mangú, a Dominican breakfast dish of mashed plantains topped with a type of thinly sliced sausage. He said he had procured it from a local restaurant. The 6-foot-4, 260-pound Sano is known as a popular teammate and this catering feat was a prime example. As he appeared with breakfast, several of his teammates, also of Dominican origin, huddled around a card table in the center of the clubhouse for a Sunday morning feast.

Sano is selective at the plate, too.

Read the rest of this entry »