Archive for Teams

Matt Bowman is having a solid rookie season in St. Louis. The 25-year-old right-hander — a Rule-5 pick out of the Mets system — has a 4.06 ERA and a 3.64 FIP in 50 games out of the Cardinals bullpen. He’s admittedly surprised by his success. As he explained to me six weeks ago, “It was a tough year last year.”

The numbers bear that out. Pitching as a starter for the Las Vegas 51s, Bowman went 7-16 with a 5.53 ERA. In 140 innings for New York’s Triple-A affiliate, his WHIP was a whiplash-inducing 1.68.

Bowman doesn’t attribute his turnaround to a mechanical tweak or an alteration of style. Nor does he point to an amended repertoire or an increase in velocity. Those things haven’t changed. What has changed is his environment. Bowman is no longer in a hitter-friendly ballpark in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. It’s often said that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and for Bowman that meant perplexity and poor performance.

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Bowman on leaving Las Vegas: “From a statistical standpoint, you would look at last year, and then at this year, and wonder how exactly that jump happened. People are usually like, ‘Add on a run for Vegas; that’s really all you need to do. Whatever that was, that’s how good he was.’ I think there’s probably more to Vegas than that.

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Oakland right-hander Jharel Cotton made his major-league debut on Wednesday. The results were positive: over 6.1 innings, Cotton conceded just a lone run on two hits — the product, that run, of a homer by the Angels’ C.J. Cron. The process, while entirely adequate, was also slightly less positive: over those 6.1 innings and against those same 22 batters, Cotton recorded just three strikeouts.

In a sense, this start was the opposite of the sort which have defined much of Cotton’s season in the Pacific Coast League this year. Despite producing the best strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%) among all 57 Triple-A qualifiers in 2016, Cotton also recorded a 4.31 ERA — which, it turns out, is only the 35th-best ERA at Triple-A and even pretty middling among just PCL starters, too. The home runs were a problem for Cotton. Sequencing was a problem for Cotton. Controlling the strike zone wasn’t.

Apart from the runs he allowed and the runs he might have been expected to allow — whatever the discrepancy there — Cotton exhibited one quality yesterday that he’s exhibited all of this season and all of last season and maybe always since he was just a small child. An excellent changeup, is what. Lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen, among others, has described it as a plus-plus pitch — and it’s the presence of that pitch that has largely been credited with allowing Cotton to experience such great success as a professional despite a rather diminutive frame.

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This week, we’re running a series of posts laying out the case for the most compelling candidates for the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award. These posts are designed to make an affirmative argument for their subject and are not intended to serve as comprehensive looks at every candidate on their own. The authors tasked with writing these posts may not even believe their subject actually deserves to win, but they were brave enough to make the case anyway. The goal of these posts is to lay out the potential reasons for voters to consider a variety of candidates and to allow the readers to decide which argument is most persuasive.

Other cases: Jose Altuve for AL MVP / Mookie Betts for AL MVP / Mike Trout for AL MVP / Manny Machado for AL MVP.

Josh Donaldson was the American League’s Most Valuable Player last season, edging out Mike Trout by receiving 23 of 30 first-place votes and earning 385 vote points, compared to Trout’s 304. Donaldson was the best player on a division-winning team and, by routinely delivering in key moments, led the league in Win Probability Added for his 93-win club.

Donaldson was great, and clutch, and a winner. And this year, he’s arguably gotten better. The wRC+ has gone up. He’s again been one of baseball’s most productive hitters in high-leverage situations. He remains one of the game’s top defensive third basemen. The reigning MVP has, in many ways, built on his award-winning season. But that’s not why he should win it again.

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The Houston Astros have summoned David Paulino from the minor leagues to make his big-league debut against the Indians today. Paulino was utterly dominant in the minors this year. Splitting time between Double-A and Triple-A, the 6-foot-7 righty whiffed 29% of batters faced on his way to a 2.00 ERA and 2.24 FIP. Somewhat quietly, Paulino put together one of the best seasons in the minors in 2016.

Paulino had shown flashes of excellence in the past, but his triumphs in the low minors have been regularly interrupted by injury. He put up a 2.63 FIP across three levels of A-ball last year, and was missing bats in rookie ball as far back as 2011. But his 2016 campaign marks the first time he’s logged anything resembling a full season, and the first time he’s had the opportunity to prove himself against advanced hitters.

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Back at the trade deadline, the Milwaukee Brewers dealt Jonathan Lucroy and Jeremy Jeffress to the Texas Rangers in exchange for prospects Lewis Brinson and Luis Ortiz, along with a player-to-be-named-later. That player now has a name, and it’s Ryan Cordell. Cordell spent all of 2016 playing at the Double-A level, where he slashed a solid .264/.319/.484 with 19 homers and 12 steals. He produced a similar batting line last year, though it was split up between a dominant performance at High-A and an underwhelming showing at Double-A.

Cordell doesn’t have any one skill to separate him from the crowd offensively, but he doesn’t have any massive weaknesses either. He hits for decent power, doesn’t strikeout terribly often and provides some value on the bases. Defensively, he grades out as well above average in the outfield, with the plurality of his games coming in center. Altogether, that makes for a promising young player.

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In June, I talked to Jesse Winker following a 2-for-3 game that included a double and a walk. At the time, a big-league call-up seemed almost imminent. The top outfield prospect in the Cincinnati system was performing well for Triple-A Louisville, and with the Reds in rebuild mode, Great American Ballpark loomed right around the corner.

I wrote up the interview, then decided to hold it until the call-up came. Days later, Winker hurt his wrist and missed the next three-and-a-half weeks. Upon his return, he went 20-for-50 — albeit with limited power — while, 100 miles north, the big-league club continued to swim against the tide.

August came and went, and Winker went nowhere. As Reds fans scratched their heads, he remained in Louisville where he celebrated his 23rd birthday and finished the season with a .303/.397/.394 slash line. Winker went deep just three times in 448 plate appearances — he had 13 long balls last year in Double-A — and walked and struck out an equal number of times (59).

As of today, Winker is still awaiting his first big-league call-up. Three months after it was conducted, the interview won’t wait any longer. Here is what Winker had to say following the June game.

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Winker on his game against the Syracuse Chiefs: “I didn’t know too much about their starter [Paolo Espino]. We did have a scouting report, and I was talking to Hernan Iribarren about how he likes to attack left-handed hitters, but the game kind of dictates itself. With a certain amount of outs and a certain number of guys on base, pitchers are going to attack you a certain way.

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His season is over and Kyle Garlick is headed home. Like most minor leaguers, the 24-year-old Los Angeles Dodgers outfield prospect will spend his offseason working. He has a pair of part-time jobs lined up, which will help him make ends meet until spring training rolls around. He’ll then resume his underdog quest to make it to the big leagues.

He’s already exceeded expectations. A 28th-round senior sign in 2015 out of Cal Poly Pomona, Garlick dominated A-ball last year, putting up a .987 OPS between multiple stops. This season he slashed .293/.348/.508, with 42 doubles and 19 home runs, between Rancho Cucamonga and Double-A Tulsa.

As recently as two years ago the one-time Oregon Duck was uncertain about his baseball future. An injury, followed by a family health issue, preceded a season in which he put up mediocre numbers and was subsequently bypassed in the 2014 amateur draft.

Garlick talked about the challenges he’s overcome — and the ones still in front of him — prior to suiting up for the final game of his 2016 season.

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Garlick on what it’s like to have the minor-league season end: “A couple of weeks ago I would have told you I was really excited. This being my first full season, my body wasn’t feeling too great. I was drained, both physically and mentally. But now that the last game of the year is here, I’m actually feeling kind of sad. I don’t really want it to end. I love playing this game and I’m going to miss is it over the next five months or so.

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The purpose of this very brief post is merely to document the first changeup — a plus-plus pitch according to lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen — of Oakland right-hander Jharel Cotton’s major-league career. It’s also to note that all representations and depictions of Cotton’s blessèd changeup must employ the grave accent over the -e-, in the same manner that has been both represented and depicted here.

Last season, a 23-year-old Randal Grichuk put together a tremendous rookie campaign. He posted a 137 wRC+ on the strength of a terrific .272 isolated-power mark. Add into the mix that he could handle all three outfield positions and, on the surface, it looked like the Cardinals had themselves a solid young contributor to build around. However, his performance was not without red flags, the most prominent among them being a 6.3% walk rate, 31.4% strikeout rate, and .365 BABIP. If Grichuk wanted to sustain his success into the 2016 season, it was reasonable to expect he’d need to improve his plate discipline to balance the likely BABIP regression.

The good news is that Grichuk was up for the challenge. He practiced his pitch identification using methods outlined by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch back in April. The early results showed that adjustments had, in fact, been made. Jeff Sullivan wrote at the time about the impressive decline in Grichuk’s swing rate on pitches out of the zone. A promising young player with a glaring weakness addressed and improved on that weakness! Fantastic! What could possibly go wrong?

In the first half, Grichuk’s strikeout rate fell all the way to 22.7% and his walk rate was up to 7.3%. Unfortunately, these improvements coincided with a massive drop off in his ability to crush baseballs. He hit just .226 in the first half thanks to a BABIP that cratered to .255 — and he posted a notably diminished .199 ISO — all of which left him with a terrifically disappointing 89 wRC+. In response, Grichuk has been demoted to Triple-A twice, once June and once at the start of August. Since his most recent return to the majors on August 11th, however, something has changed.

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A friend was asking a question about matchups in the coming month, and was talking about lefties and how Houston has done against lefties and maybe he should start A.J. Griffin against them and so on. I was playing along, pointing out that maybe it wasn’t a great matchup because Houston has a good lineup and they’re in a park that’s good for offense and all that. I didn’t even blink.

Of course, Griffin is a righty. No idea why we both thought he was a lefty, but we’re not alone. A quick Twitter poll — results below! — revealed Griffin as a top contender for “righty we most think is a lefty.”

Unfortunately, none of us know why we mentally mistake hands on some players. Or at least, we don’t have a quick answer to that question, other than vague references to arsenal (“crafty”), temperament (“different personalities”), or television time (“I don’t see them much”). Most responses to the poll included an “I don’t know why” of some sort.

Still, it’s something we do. And it’s sort of fascinating, because lefty starters do actually do things a little differently than righty starters — things we can actually define objectively. Which means we can apply the statistical definition of a lefty starter to the righty-starter population. And we can answer this question with stats!

So… which righty really acts the most like a lefty? Which righty is the most lefty-like? Turns out, it’s not Griffin, but the wisdom of the crowd was not far off, really.

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