Archive for Teams

We had multiple Pirates articles here at FanGraphs yesterday. Craig Edwards, for example, wrote about how Gerrit Cole’s slider went missing against the Red Sox. Travis Sawchik wrote about the embattled shift. I contributed, as well, with a piece called “Searage, Taillon, and the Pirates Upstairs“.

I’d spoken to pitching coach Ray Searage and right-hander Jameson Taillon on Monday, and the latter followed up on our conversation with a stellar effort on Wednesday night. Making his first start of the season, Taillon tossed seven scoreless frames against a potent Boston lineup. His most impressive performance came in the fifth inning. In a scoreless game, the Red Sox had put runners on second and third with none out. Taillon responded by recording consecutive strikeouts, then got Dustin Pedroia to bounce back to the mound.

I planned to follow-up with Taillon this morning to get his thoughts on the performance, particularly in regard to his sequencing. Unfortunately, this afternoon’s game was postponed early due to weather, and the Pirates clubhouse wasn’t opened to media.

Despite that disappointment, I do have follow-up Taillon content to provide. The majority of what he told me earlier in the week wasn’t included in yesterday’s article, with today in mind. Here are the highlights.

———

Taillon on why he’s throwing more two-seam, and fewer four-seam, fastballs: “I kind of put pressure on myself to command my four-seam. Basically, I got a little too fine with it at times. The two-seam is just a much more aggressive mentality, and I do put guys on the ground with it. I’ll throw bad two-seams in my head — out of my hand, I think they’re bad — and I’ll still put hitters on the ground. It’s a better pitch for me.

Read the rest of this entry »

While pitcher wins and losses have been abandoned by many as a means to assess a pitcher’s effectively, the traditional measurement of performance from a bygone era is still attached to every pitcher in the game. And even though pitchers have limited control over the ability to win and lose games, Chris Archer’s 19 losses last season do tell a story. They tell a tale of frustration, of an uneven campaign, and of poor luck on balls in play (and out of play) even as his underlying skills and fielding-independent numbers were suggestive of a pitcher who deserved a better fate.

Despite Archer’s 27.4% strikeout rate and the 19.5-point differential between his strikeout and walk rates (K-BB%), the Rays still managed to lose 23 of the 33 games Archer started.

But his Opening Day start against the Yankees suggested that Archer might be poised not only to bounce back by traditional measurements, but that he might be ready to leap to a new level of underlying performance thanks to an improved pitch.

After working as a top-of-the rotation arm mostly via a fastball-slider combo, Archer might have a new important variable for opponents to consider: an improved changeup.

Archer threw 13 changeups in the season opener versus the Yankees, and many of them were of the fading-, diving-, bat-missing, lefty-neutralizing variety.

An Archer change against Jacoby Ellsbury…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tuesday was a good day for the Cubs. Most of them are good days for the Cubs, but on Tuesday, they earned their first win of 2017, edging out the Cardinals 2-1. Jason Heyward and Javier Baez drove in the runs, but the star was Jake Arrieta, who spun six innings with just an unearned run going against him. He piled up six whiffs, and it was a good way for him to get things going. If the Cubs have any potential vulnerability, it has to do with rotation depth. As long as Arrieta and the other guys are clicking, the Cubs are at least as good as anyone else.

On TV, Arrieta looked effective. In the box score, Arrieta looks effective. But what was the deal with his fastball? This is an open question. I don’t have an answer. I just have evidence that makes me think thoughts.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last spring, in Dodgers camp, a remarkable thing happened without any of us noticing. It’s not uncommon, of course, for a young prospect to seek out a veteran starting pitcher for conversation. That sort of thing happens all the time. But when Jharel Cotton was soaking in knowledge from Scott Kazmir that day, something unique was happening. Baseball’s top changeup was hanging out with baseball’s second-best changeup. A baton was being passed.

Read the rest of this entry »

On opening day, the Padres lost to the Dodgers by 11 runs, and the score makes the game seem closer than it was. It was more or less how the game was expected to go, and half the postgame stories revolved around the same narrative: It’s going to be a long season for San Diego. And, you know what, it probably will be a long season for San Diego. But after game number two, the Padres and Dodgers are even at .500. The Dodgers didn’t just lose on Tuesday — they got blanked, 4-0.

Yangervis Solarte hit a home run. That was a big deal. Erick Aybar went 3-for-3 with two doubles and a walk. That was a big deal. Wil Myers scored on a pop-up to short. That was a big deal. But the biggest deal of all was Clayton Richard, and his eight shutout innings. Richard threw 69% strikes and induced four double plays, and he wound up with a game score of 75, tied for the second-best mark of his career. His only better game came in 2012. Clayton Richard isn’t supposed to turn in these outings.

He won’t make a habit of it. Nobody could. But that isn’t the point. The larger point is that Richard is back, he’s healthy, and he’s rebuilt. He’s 33 years old and he’s part of a rotation many expect to be the worst in the league, but you have to give Richard some credit. He possesses a true 80 skill.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last year’s playoffs were seen as a win not only for the Cubs and their fans, but also for proponents of the relief ace. On a national stage, Terry Francona used Andrew Miller early and often to put out fires almost regardless of inning. He’d been doing it ever since Cleveland acquired Miller in the summer, of course, but here was a manager deploying the strategy on the game’s largest stage.

Not every team can be blessed with having both Miller and Cody Allen on their roster, though, nor can every team have both Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman. Most teams are lucky enough to have a good closer, and most of those teams employ the traditional strategy of waiting until the ninth inning to use their best reliever. Much has been made of the strategic merit of that, but it’s a system that helps players know their roles on the team, and that has value, too. But if a team isn’t blessed with a Miller-type player, then they need a sturdy bridge to arrive at that closer. Even Cleveland and New York need help from guys without well-known names.

We’ve been fixated on the idea of the relief ace. The idea is so tantalizing and so intoxicating. Not only is it awesome to see Miller jump in and melt faces whenever Tito desires, but it’s a bit of a high for sabermetric types to see something for which they’ve argued so strenuously actually getting implemented in games. And this isn’t to say that the relief ace is a bad idea! It’s an exceedingly good idea, if the usage of the pitcher is properly managed. But the relief ace, and the closer, don’t matter a ton if the rest of the guys in the bullpen aren’t effective.

Take the Giants’ opener on Sunday, for instance. Madison Bumgarner went seven innings. Bruce Bochy needed just two innings from his bullpen to hold a one-run lead. A lot of teams have a setup man to serve as an opening act for the closer, and indeed, the Giants were supposed to have Will Smith out there. He’s out for the year with Tommy John surgery, though. So the duty fell to Derek Law, who promptly coughed up the lead, and the Diamondbacks walked it off against Mark Melancon in the ninth.

San Francisco’s bullpen, outside of  Melancon, looks almost entirely the same as it did last year. They appeared in the bottom half of our bullpen power rankings for a reason. There just isn’t enough firepower there, even if they likely aren’t as disastrously bad as they were down the stretch last year, from a true talent perspective. They may have replaced Santiago Casilla with Melancon, but the relief corps isn’t strong enough to compensate when a starter only goes five.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jameson Taillon will be throwing a lot of two-seamers when he takes the mound tonight for the Pirates at Fenway Park. It’s become his main course of attack. According to the 25-year-old right-hander, 70% of his fastballs are now twos, and that’s the pitch he prefers to go with “in any action count.”

It fits his team’s recent philosophy. Pittsburgh pitchers have been baseball’s best ground-ball hunters, putting up MLB’s highest ground-ball rate over the past six seasons. With a modus operandi of down, down, down, they’ve lived at the bottom of the strike zone with almost religious fervor.

Expect that to change somewhat in 2017 — even for two-seam purveyors like Taillon. The Bucs aren’t suddenly all about up, up, up, but kneecaps and ankles are no longer exclusive territory. Per pitching coach Ray Searage, increased elevation is in the offing.

Read the rest of this entry »

There have always been those who have doubted the merits of the shift in Pittsburgh.

Back in the summer of 2013, after a Pirates’ shift was beat by a well-placed ground ball that resulted in a Texas run, A.J. Burnett exchanged words with shortstop Clint Barmes on the field and later in the dugout. Later approached by a television reporter in the clubhouse, Burnett explained, with emphasis, his frustration.

“Listen, I did not have a problem with Clint! I do not have a problem with Clint! I had a problem with the fucking shift! We play people in the wrong spot!”

Of course, that was also the season the Pirates increased their shift usage by 400%, their staff produced an MLB-record ground-ball rate, opponents hit an anemic .207 against the shift, and the club dramatically improved its defensive efficiency en route to its first winning season and playoff berth since 1992.

Despite the general success of the shift for the Pirates, there were those once again bemoaning it in Pittsburgh (where I still keep a primary residence) — in the media and the public forums — after Sandy Leon beat the shift with a well-placed bunt on Monday.

As one can see, Leon’s bunt is followed by what appears to be a rather unpleasant gaze from Gerrit Cole into the visiting dugout, ostensibly in response to the club’s positioning.

And one batter later, Andrew Benintendi was able to cover an elevated-and-in 98 mph fastball.

Said Cole to reporters afterward: “They just hit them where we weren’t.”

Indeed.

Read the rest of this entry »

After winning the Cy Young award in 2015, Dallas Keuchel had a follow-up campaign that really can only be described as disappointing. His ERA ballooned from 2.48 – good for second in the AL that year – to 4.55, 32nd in the AL out of 39 qualified pitchers.

A glance at Keuchel’s peripherals indicates that his fall may not have been as dramatic as it seemed, as his xFIP was a solid 3.53 — the second-best mark of his career, actually, after adjusting for league and park. But a pitcher who sees his ERA rise by over two runs certainly isn’t content to rely on things to right themselves. So Keuchel took matters into his own hands.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s possible you haven’t had the opportunity to watch every single game over the first few days of the 2017 season. For those games you’ve missed — say, Pittsburgh against Boston on Monday — you’re likely to have glanced at the box score to see how certain players performed. In the case of that Pirates-Red Sox game, you find that Andrew Benintendi hit a homer, Rick Porcello pitched six solid innings, and that the home team won by a score of 5-3.

If you looked at the line of Pittsburgh starter Gerrit Cole, you’d see a flawed five innings, with just two strikeouts, one walk, that homer to Benintendi, and all five of Boston’s runs. That’s not how Cole wanted the season to start, but the stat line isn’t quite as bad as it would appear.

Gerrit Cole has been successful in the major leagues primarily due to a great four-seam fastball. When he complemented the fastball with increased slider usage, he started dominating. There had been some talk earlier in the spring about an increased use of the changeup, as well, but when he spoke with Travis Sawchik, Cole indicated he was prioritizing his health and returning to what made him successful.

This spring Cole is not trying to re-invent himself. He has a modest goal: a healthy season. While he’s toyed with the idea of throwing more changeups the last couple of springs, he has rarely thrown the pitch in the regular season. He says he plans on continuing to be “me,” which indicates he will lean on a fastball that has averaged 95.2 mph or better in each of his first four major-league seasons — he threw it 66.7% of the time last year in line with his career (66.5%) usage — and the slider as a put-away offering.

For Cole, being “me” would suggest a combination of heavy fastball usage with the slider for whiffs. Did he stick to that plan against Boston, though? Not so much, actually. Cole did throw that fastball roughly 70% of the time, which is right in line with his established levels. As for the non-fastball offerings, however, he actually didn’t return to the slider that had made him so successful, ultimately throwing the pitch just six times.

As for explanations, we could chalk it up to efficiency. Cole threw just 76 pitches total. Through four innings, he’d thrown just 50 pitches to 13 batters. Cole wasn’t striking batters out. If hitters were putting the ball in play early in the count, then it’s possible he just arrived in fewer situations where the slider made sense. That wasn’t the case, however.

Read the rest of this entry »