Archive for Teams

Kyle Barraclough has a record of 6-2 and a 2.88 ERA n 53 games out of the Miami Marlins bullpen this season. Those are his ho-hum numbers. The 26-year-old right-hander has 82 strikeouts, 34 walks, and has allowed 31 hits in 50 innings. Those are his holy-cow numbers.

Barraclough’s 14.75 strikeouts per nine innings is tops in the National League, and third highest in MLB behind Dellin Betances (15.86) and Andrew Miller (15.38). His 6.12 walks per nine innings is the most of any pitcher, in either league.

Obtained from the St. Louis Cardinals last July in exchange for Steve Cishek, Barraclough overpowers hitters with a mid- to high-90s fastball and a slider that averages a tick over 82 mph. The latter is his signature pitch. Barraclough throws it 40% of the time, and as Jeff Sullivan wrote in June, “It’s a phenomenal slider.”

Barraclough talked about his power arsenal, and how his ability to miss bats helps ameliorate his walk rate, prior to a recent game at Marlins Park.

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Barraclough on limiting damage and missing bats: “The walks matter — you obviously want to limit them as much as you can — but my ability to get out of jams with strikeouts is what helps me the most. If you walk a guy, but don’t give up a lot of hits… I mean, if you take your walk rate, K rate and hit rate, and two of them are good, that’s going to translate to better statistics, to fewer earned runs. You want your WHIP to be close to 1.00, or under 1.00, and if you walk a guy but don’t give up any hits, it’s going to be hard for them to score.

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I’m not really in the business of piling on. We know the Reds haven’t been very good, and we knew the Reds weren’t supposed to be very good. They are openly rebuilding, and while rebuilding teams don’t get to completely neglect the big-league product, it’s not really the priority. We all know how this works. And, say, wouldn’t you know it, but since the calendar flipped to July, the Reds have actually won more games than they’ve lost! Good for them. It would be nice to see the bad teams rise perhaps quicker than they ever thought possible.

There’s just something I can’t let go by, not without calling attention to it. The Reds, overall, have been bad. They’ve been bad in large part because their pitchers have been bad. Here are the month-by-month WARs for the Reds’ collective pitching staff:

• April: -1.4 WAR
• May: -1.3
• June: -0.8
• July: +1.8
• August: +0.1

They don’t seem to add up so cleanly, but if you look at the full-season statistics, Reds pitchers have combined for -2.1 WAR. Unsurprisingly, that’s the lowest mark in baseball — the Angels are second-worst, at +3.0. It seems like the Reds might have last place sewn up. But let’s step beyond just 2016. Let’s look at forever? Here are the worst team pitching staffs since 1900, according to FanGraphs WAR and FanGraphs WAR alone:

WAR is just one measure. I know. It doesn’t get everything perfect. I know. It does do a lot more right than wrong. And according to WAR, these Reds could end up being the worst pitching staff in modern baseball history. No team yet on record has rated below replacement level. That’s where the Reds are, underwater by a couple of wins, and while July suggested they could pull themselves out of this and get a breath of fresh air, there’s work to be done. The Reds have 52 games to go, assuming they play them all. They don’t necessarily need to pitch well. They just need to pitch better, or else they could rank as the worst anyone’s seen. That’s something to avoid. That’s something to play for!

Homer Bailey has returned. That’s a plus for the Reds. Alfredo Simon is on the disabled list, and J.J. Hoover is in the minors, and those are both pluses for the Reds. Quietly, Anthony DeSclafani has been super effective. The Reds should have the arms they need. As I look, the Reds are projected the rest of the way for +3.7 pitching WAR, which would get them out of…the…red, so to speak. But if nothing else, just know what’s already happened. The Reds pitchers have been historically lousy. You might’ve suspected that to be true, but it always helps to confirm. Or, maybe, it helps nothing at all.

I think everyone agrees the White Sox haven’t had the year they wanted. So, at present, they’re probably not too keen on celebrating individual accomplishments, but I don’t care, because I’m not them, and because I need material to write about. Therefore! Take a look at Adam Eaton’s player page. There’s something kind of weird that might jump out to you. Eaton as a regular last year was worth 3.6 WAR. Eaton as a regular this year is looking to push 5 WAR. That on its own isn’t real crazy for a 27-year-old, but look over at some other columns. Compared to last year, Eaton has hit worse. Compared to last year, Eaton has run the bases worse. Still, his value has gone up.

That’s because of his defense. What’s funny there, too, is that Eaton moved over to right field from center. So he’s handled a less-important position, but he’s been absolutely fantastic in the corner. Part of what’s happened is that Eaton has shown exceptional range. Yet that doesn’t come close to being a full explanation. You probably know that we have UZR on the site, and we also display many of its components. One of those components is ARM rating, and we have that information going back to 2002. Here are the top 10 player-seasons in ARM per 1,000 innings, for outfielders with at least 750 innings played on the grass. (As you understand, this season isn’t yet over.) (Just, be cool.)

That should go to show you how good Eaton has been. And now, I want to show you another table. I looked at every outfielder who played at least 750 defensive innings in the outfield for two years in a row. Here are the biggest year-to-year ARM-rating improvements:

If the season ended now, Eaton would officially rank first in the table. The season actually has a whole lot left — perhaps to the White Sox’ collective chagrin — but Eaton is still positioned well. He’s never had strong ARM numbers before. Now he’s having one of the best ARM seasons on record.

You don’t have to get too complicated with things. How can you explain these numbers? According to stats at Baseball-Reference, Eaton has been one of the best right fielders in terms of holding baserunners. He’s also held a lot of runners when he’s shifted over to center for occasional spells. And the thing you most closely associate with ARM rating is the outfield assist. Eaton leads all outfielders with 16 assists. Nobody else has more than 12. That kind of gap gets you a big positive number.

In the past, according to the Fan Scouting Report, Eaton wasn’t perceived to have a real strong arm. However, Eaton’s arm did eclipse 100 miles per hour on a throw in 2015. The strength was there, and it stands to reason Eaton this year has gotten more accurate. He might’ve also gotten better about his anticipation and his attack angles. This throw right here is a thing of beauty:

Of course, ARM success can also be tied to bad baserunning decisions:

…so it’s a noisy stat. Runners learn, and assists can come down to fractions of a second. There’s plenty of luck involved, to fold in with the skill. Adam Eaton might not actually have one of the most valuable arms in recent baseball history, but that arm has had a strong season. Most strong seasons are about both skill and luck.

Adam Eaton used to be a center fielder of questionable defensive adequacy. Now he’s a right fielder who looks more comfortable than perhaps any other right fielder. He’s done well to improve his angles, but even more importantly, Eaton’s arm has been playing incredibly well. It’s not close to enough to salvage the White Sox’ disappointing season, but Eaton, overall, has been among the least of their problems.

Yesterday afternoon, Ichiro Suzuki became just the 30th player to reach 3,000 hits in the major leagues. He did so with a triple, making him just the second player ever to get to hit number 3,000 on a triple. It was a pretty glorious hit, and it will be one of the capstones on an awesome career. To celebrate, I thought we could take a walk back down memory lane and look at some of the most impactful hits of his Hall of Fame career. Some are his best according to WPA, some are postseason hits, and a few are just round-number hits, because we all love those. We’ll go in chronological order.

April 2, 2001, Mariners vs. Athletics
Ichiro wasted little time getting going. After grounding out to the right side in his first two major-league plate appearances, and striking out in the third, Ichiro would single up the middle in his fourth plate appearance, and drop down a bunt single in his fifth and final plate appearance of his first game.

The first hit came off of T.J. Mathews, and the bunt came off of Jim Mecir. Ichiro scored following the first hit to pull the Mariners within one run, and the bunt would push go-ahead run Carlos Guillen to third. The bunt came following a walk. Generally speaking, you don’t want to give away an out with a bunt when a reliever comes into the game and walks the first batter he faces on five pitches, but Ichiro did anyway, quickly serving notice that the normal rules of engagement did not apply to him. Guillen would cross home three batters later, and the Mariners historic 2001 season started with a bang.

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So far in his major-league career, Mike Trout has worn the golden sombrero four times. The first time, three of the strikeouts came against Max Scherzer. The second time, two of the strikeouts came against Drew Hutchison. The third time, three of the strikeouts came against James Paxton. Sunday marked the fourth occasion. Sunday, all four strikeouts came against Paxton. So that made Sunday the first time the best player in baseball had struck out four times against the same pitcher in the same game.

Just in isolation, such a four-strikeout game would be notable. But when you consider the context, I love writing about Trout, and he’s amazing. And I love writing about Paxton, and he’s quickly improving his profile. What does it look like when a pitcher does this to the best in the world? Let us watch the strikeouts together. Trout doesn’t give us these opportunities very often.

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The New York Yankees are in the middle stages of an overhaul, both in terms of player turnover and also philosophy. Over the past few weeks, the team has traded Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, and Carlos Beltran for a bevy of prospects that includes four players near the top of Eric Longenhagen’s rankings of prospects traded at the deadline. Mark Teixeira wasn’t going to be back next year, so his retirement announcement is more a symbol of — rather than actual contribution to — a changing Yankees’ future. The news that Alex Rodriguez would be stepping aside as well, though, further adds to the changing of the guard in the Bronx. They were in a similar spot in 2013 and abandoned plans to build for the future so they could contend in the near term. Will they abandon those plans again or will they exercise a little more discipline?

The Chicago Cubs spent years both (a) getting rid of old contracts and (b) trading, drafting, and signing prospects. Last season, they began to see the fruits of their labor. The Yankees shouldn’t need to head down that path. The team’s farm system was strong before the team sold at the trade deadline, and it’s possible that some of the international signings from 2014 will start to make their way up the ranks in the near future, as well. The Yankees also have less of a financial need to get rid of bad contracts before contending. The Yankees have the financial power to spend to succeed. These are the larger long-term contracts they do currently possess:

• Jacoby Ellsbury (four years, $90 million)
• Masahiro Tanaka (four years, $89 million with an opt out after 2017)
• Brian McCann (two years, $34 million)
• Starlin Castro (three years, $31 million)
• Chase Headley (two years, $26 million)
• Brett Gardner (two years, $25 million)
• CC Sabathia (one more year at $25 M seems likely with his vested option)

Of those contracts, Sabathia is likely an overpay — but for just one season — and the Yankees might need his innings next year, even if they’re just of the average variety. Gardner, Headley, and McCann are all reasonable contracts which compensate each player at a rate pretty close to his actual value. If the team believes prospect Gary Sanchez is ready to take over full-time catching duties, then giving away McCann is an option to free up salary, but he’s not likely to bring decent prospects back. The same is true for Gardner. Castro remains an enigma, providing generally below-average production, but his salaries are hardly burdensome. Ellsbury has a contract from which the team might like to free itself, but it doesn’t necessarily make sense to pick up some of his contract for someone else when he’s still likely to provide average production from center field. Tanaka has pitched very well this season and should be the Yankees ace in 2017 before he opting out of his contract after that.

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Byron Buxton’s demotion to Triple-A Rochester on Sunday brings the tally to four demotions to Triple-A Rochester more than fans of the Minnesota Twins hoped to witness their top prospect endure once he made his major-league debut on June 14, 2015. Buxton is headed to the minors to do one thing, and one thing only: fine-tune his swing. It’s what every demotion’s been about thus far.

Buxton’s got the tools. Stop me if you’ve heard that one before. Few players in the game have more speed. The defense certainly isn’t a question; he’s been something close to a +10 defender in center field. Already, he’s shown just how far his athleticism alone can take him, so long as the bat can do enough to stick in the lineup. If Buxton could manage a batting line just 20% below league average, as his current ZiPS projection forecasts, he could be something like a 2.5-win player at the age of 22. Even a league-average batting line would turn him into a borderline star. He would seem so close to that reality, if only his numbers didn’t make him appear so far away.

Buxton’s career batting line through 356 plate appearances sits at .199/.248/.319, the batting average being one point below the Mendoza Line embodying the tantalizing frustration of his being simultaneously so close and yet so far away. Among 363 batters who have batted at least 300 times since the beginning of last season, just three have a lower wRC+ than Buxton’s mark of 49. And so now, he returns to Rochester to diagnose what in that swing is keeping him from success at the major-league level, as we at home attempt to diagnose just how we got to this point.

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I have a favorite pitch in the majors. As someone who hopes to illuminate interesting aspects of the game of baseball, I wish I could say my favorite pitch was an obscure off-the-board pick that you had never previously considered – a pitch by an obscure reliever or an up-and-coming rookie, perhaps — but in reality, my favorite is classic and unoriginal. The pitch that makes me go weak at the knees like no other is Adam Wainwright’s curveball.

As a baseball fan of a certain age, I’ve recently found myself facing the mortality of the seminal baseball figures of my formative years. From The Kid’s enshrinement in Cooperstown to the imminent retirement of Alex Rodriguez to the 3,000th hit of a player from Japan who I swear won the Rookie of the Year award just a few years ago, my baseball life has been inundated recently with baseball reflections and farewells. When a 34-year-old Adam Wainwright posted a 7.16 ERA through his first five starts of the season, part of me wondered if I would also be saying goodbye to my favorite pitch sooner than later. However, since the start of May, things have turned around significantly for Wainwright.

As the season has progressed, Wainwright’s results have steadily improved to the extent that he now has a 2.74 ERA and 24.1% strikeout rate over his past 11 starts. However, one thing that hasn’t kept pace with his improved results is the performance of his signature curveball. By our pitch-type linear weights, the run value of his curve per 100 thrown is at the lowest mark since 2007 — his first year as a starter. Opponents have posted a 64 wRC+ against the pitch this season, which sounds reasonably good until you note that opponents have registered a minuscule 26 wRC+ against the pitch over his career. Is this a fluke, or has Wainwright’s recent resurgence happened in spite of the fact that his curveball is in decline?

To evaluate the performance of the pitch, I first looked at two key indicators: whiffs per swing and grounders per balls in play. If these peripheral stats remained stable, it would indicate to me that batters were performing as expected against the pitch and the declining results-based performance of the pitch was a fluke.

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I’ll be in California for the next few days at the Area Codes and some Cal League stuff, but below are some thoughts on three Phillies prospects I’ve seen recently, including Jake Thompson, who debuts today.

Jake Thompson, RHP, Philadelphia Phillies

I saw Thompson a few weeks ago and he struggled with command. I don’t think strike-throwing is a long-term issue here — at least not so much that it will prevent him from starting — but I do think it impacts the effectiveness of his slider and that the most important part of his development at the major-league level will be locating that pitch where he wants when he wants. It’s often plus and should be so consistently at maturity. Thompson had issues locating it for me for the first half of his start until a mid-game at-bat during which C Andrew Knapp called for six straight sliders. It was a great opportunity for Thompson to find his slider, and it worked: Thompson located it for the rest of his start. It’s his best option for swings and misses to both right- and left-handed hitters. It was anywhere from 83-86 during this particular start though I’ve seen it up to 87 in the past.

Thompson’s fastball sits 90-93 and tops out around 94. His low-80s changeup has average projection, as does his curveball, which is slower and more vertically oriented than his slider. It’s a league-average starter’s profile for me.

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Perhaps lost a bit in the trade-deadline shuffle, Kansas City left-hander Danny Duffy pitched one of the very best games of the year this past Monday. On the road against Tampa Bay, he had a no-hitter going until the eighth inning. By the time that inning had ended, Duffy had recorded 16 strikeouts against just one hit and one walk. After a fairly mediocre 2015 season spent mostly in the rotation, Duffy looked to be the next in line to become a very good reliever on a Royals team that has had its fair share. For the first month of the season Duffy pitched quite well out of the pen, but since the middle of May, he’s been a part of the rotation. Jeff Sullivan chronicled Duffy’s rise in the middle of June, noting in particular the lefty’s ability to throw for strikes, and hitters’ general inability to hit those strikes.

The numbers Sullivan cited in his post six weeks ago have remained good since then. Danny Duffy is generally a strike-thrower, keeping the ball in the zone 53% of the time this season, a figure which ranks sixth out of 95 qualified pitchers. Nor is he necessarily pitching to contact, however: his 78% Z-Contact rate is third in baseball behind only knuckleballer Steven Wright and Max Scherzer. Hitters haven’t fared too much better outside of the zone: his 56.6% O-Contact rate is 13th among qualifiers. His overall contact percentage (72%) and swinging-strike percentage (14.3%) sit behind only the figures produced by Jose Fernandez, Clayton Kershaw, Michael Pineda, Max Scherzer, and Noah Syndergaard. His 62% first-strike rate is good, but closer to the middle of the pack.

In Duffy’s brilliant game against he Rays, his first-strike percentage was actually a tad lower than normal at 53.9%, and his zone percentage was just a bit under 50%. Where Duffy excelled was getting the Rays to chase the ball outside the strike zone. Of the pitches outside of the strike zone, Rays batters swung at 44% of them and made contact on just 20% of swings.

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