Archive for Teams

Against an admittedly terrible Padres lineup, Vincent Velasquez just pitched the game of his life. No matter how high you are on Velasquez’s potential, you should agree he’ll probably never again finish with such a sparkling line: nine innings, no runs, three singles, no walks, 16 strikeouts. Velasquez was constantly around the zone, but the Padres couldn’t do a thing, and the Phillies allowed Velasquez to get the final out because he hadn’t yet thrown a single pitch under stress. Velasquez didn’t just pitch to that final line; he cruised to it.

It was an incredible, overpowering effort, and I’m going to write more about Velasquez tomorrow. I’ll write more about the game, and more about Velasquez in general. But my favorite part wasn’t how Velasquez worked, or finished. Rather, my favorite part was how he treated Cory Spangenberg. Now, I don’t know if it was by design. But Velasquez wound up facing Spangenberg four times, and he was awfully cruel.

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Inevitably, after just a week and change’s worth of games, we find players on teams that have gotten off to slow starts saying things about how it’s just April, and win-loss records don’t matter too much. Outward optimism is sort of a prerequisite if you’re a professional athlete — whether you truly feel it or not — but there’s no doubt the majority of players who make these comments most likely believe them. It is early, and there’s plenty of time left in the season. But, as Jeff pointed out this week, the games matter! Playoff odds have changed. For the Braves, they never really had a shot to begin with, so starting 0-8 doesn’t change too much. But for the Minnesota Twins, their longshot campaign to make the playoffs this season has taken a faceplant.

Let’s talk about the Twins first, as they’re the big story here, and the American League Central is likely to be one of the most competitive divisions in baseball this season. Though our projections liked (and still like) Cleveland’s team this season, the Royals have declared war on those projections, and the Tigers and White Sox have built interesting teams with upside. That is true to some extent for the Twins as well: they’re building for the future, sure, but they also have some intriguing breakout candidates who could theoretically propel them into contention in a division that doesn’t have a clear-cut top dog. Those are the makings of a potentially great four- or five-way division battle throughout the season! Or else, that was the idea until now, eight games into the season, when the Twins find themselves 0-8. Here’s what that has done to their potential playoff odds (click on the image for a larger version):

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It’s funny — a couple months back, Jeff did a little study on the teams about which we’ve written the most and least. At the time of his study, we’d written fewer articles about the Twins than any other team, since 2008. And I’d bet a good chunk of those articles were about the Twins’ pitching staff, and their avoidance of strikeouts, or something similar along those lines. Well, here’s a new Twins article! And, guess what, it’s about strikeouts again!

Except, well:

I’m sorry it has to be this way, Minnesota.

In case it’s not clear, those aren’t just the top two names on the strikeout leaderboard of Twins batters with at least 20 plate appearances this season, those are the top two names on the strikeout leaderboard of all batters with at least 20 plate appearances this season. Miguel Sano is sixth. Eddie Rosario is 15th. Things haven’t gone particularly well for the Twins thus far. They’re 0-8.

And I suppose this post could be about Byron Buxton, or collectively all those names I named, but I don’t meant to pile on. Sano will be just fine, and his strikeout rate really isn’t that much higher than we’d expect it to be. Rosario just isn’t particularly interesting. Buxton’s struck out 13 times and walked zero in 25 plate appearances, and actually, that should probably have its own post, but I’ve already done all this research on Park, so this is what you’ve got for now. Someone will get to Buxton soon enough. Let’s talk about Byung-ho Park, who’s struck out exactly as often as he hasn’t.

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Unless you’ve been following the Yankees this year, there’s a decent chance you have no idea who Ronald Torreyes is. That’s understandable. I’ve been monitoring him for a while, but that’s only because I spend an inordinate amount of time parsing through minor-league data to identify players like him: players who are way, way off the prospect radar, but who project to be impact big leaguers.

Torreyes is off to a torrid start this year. In limited action with the Yankees, the 23-year-old infielder is hitting .667/.667/1.000. That’s a 401 wRC+. In nine trips to the plate, he has two singles, a double, a triple and only one strikeout. I know: small sample, blah, blah, BABIP, blah, blah. But Torreyes’ first nine plate appearances have been about as good as it gets.

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Based on what was happening in my Twitter feed, scouts drooled over few players in spring training quite like they drooled over Adam Conley. My memory might be exaggerating things, but I know that Conley was getting a fair bit of hype. Now, the problem was that there’s not much meaningful analysis we’re able to do with spring-training performance, especially those that take place in Florida, away from any PITCHf/x instrumentation. But, wouldn’t you know it? Conley just pitched well on Wednesday in New York, nearly beating the Mets. You want to talk a little bit about Adam Conley? Let’s talk a little bit about Adam Conley. That way we can at least get him on our collective radar.

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Pretty obviously, it’s too early to learn much from our 2016 regular-season sample sizes. In most cases, we just need to be patient until the sample sizes grow, over the course of weeks or months. We go through this every single year, and it’s just part of re-transitioning into the baseball routine. But what if we could work backwards? Take Kelvin Herrera. What if we could increase his sample size by including last year’s playoffs? It sounds weird, but I’ll tell you why it’s possible: Just in time for the playoffs, Herrera started doing something. He’s continued that something into 2016, and it’s made him unfair.

I’m not even deterred by the fact that I wrote about this last October. I generally don’t like repetition, but it’s a new year, now, and Herrera’s keeping it up. So I won’t stop until more people understand that Kelvin Herrera now possesses a reliable breaking ball, and that goes with his blazing heater and high-80s changeup. The breaker comes in around 81 – 84, and based on what we can see, this is turning Herrera into a monster.

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The way these things – meaning “baseball” – go, the Orioles probably won’t be undefeated for long. Baseball is all about losing. The best teams lose a lot. The worst teams lose a lot a lot. I’m not sure the Orioles are the latter of those things, but even if they’re the first a loss is coming, so we’d better get to this while we can.

Have you seen the standings? Jeff Sullivan examined them a couple days ago here at website Fangraphs dot com and, further, he examined the teams that have improved their chances of making the playoffs the most since the season began.

Now hold that thought because we’re going to come back to it. Remember the preseason? That’s the time we all pretend we know what’s going to happen and make predictions about the upcoming season. These predictions are stupid stupid stupid predictions that will always be wrong because predictions about baseball are always wrong. Anyway, if you examined (lots of examining!) those preseason predictions — specifically the ones concerning the American League Eastern Division — you would find many different permutations. You’d find people who predicted the Red Sox to win the division, others who predicted the Rays, and many others who predicted the Blue Jays. Some even predicted the Yankees. Did anyone pick the Orioles? I didn’t see anyone. The Orioles were the one team it seems nobody thought was going to do squat in the AL East this season. So, of course of course of course they’re 7-0 and in first place. Of course.

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In this week’s third unexpected outfield prospect callup, the Atlanta Braves summoned speedy outfielder Mallex Smith from Triple-A to replace the injured Ender Inciarte. Smith’s been on a tear lately. He slashed an outstanding .346/.393/.808 in spring training, and had a loud three games in Triple-A to start the year. It seems that was enough to convince the Braves he was ready for the next level.

Smith split last season between Double-A and Triple-A, hitting a combined .306/.373/.386 with an eye-popping 57 steals. In 2014, he lead all of organized baseball with 88 stolen bases. Smith’s control of the strike zone and lofty BABIPs result in high OBPs, which allows him to take full advantage of his top-notch speed. Power is the one piece that was missing from Smith’s offensive profile, but just about everything else is there.

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It’s not easy to hit a home run to right field in Fenway Park. It’s actually quite difficult to hit a home run to right field in Fenway Park, even as home runs go. There’s a common misconception that Fenway yields a bunch of cheap dingers. By quantity, Fenway keeps itself reasonable. But it does claim one particular type of cheap dinger, the one where a hitter manages to wrap the ball around Pesky’s Pole. If you place the ball just right down the line, you can hit it 305 feet and take your four bases. It’s absurd when it happens, but so is the fact that we dedicate so much of our attention to the sport in the first place. Don’t tug on that absurdity thread, unless you’re prepared to question more than you’re used to.

Tuesday afternoon, I was watching the Orioles play the Red Sox, and J.J. Hardy slashed a liner to right that bounced off the top of the fence beside the pole. I thought to myself, “ehh, maybe that’s worth an article.” Shortly thereafter I left the house and didn’t think much about it. Imagine my surprise when I found out Hardy did it again, a few innings later. The batted ball itself was different, but the result was the same: Twice in one contest, the right-handed Hardy homered next to the pole. That’s a whole different level of absurd.

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Building a rotation is a difficult task for any organization. Drafting and developing prospects takes time and patience and often yields little in the way of results. Free agency is incredibly expensive not merely for proven pitchers, but unproven and mediocre ones, as well. Trades mean giving up talent and making sacrifices for the future. There is not a best way to build a rotation, but some teams have more limitations than others financially and the most efficient way to build a rotation includes young, cost-controlled starters. Ideally, a team would want the best rotation at the least possible expense. It’s a difficult task, but the New York Mets (to name one team) appear to have accomplished it.

A few weeks ago, FanGraphs previewed the 2016 by using the Depth Chart Projections found here to rank the teams by position. While the exercise itself is most useful for creating context around the projections — and to highlight individual players and teams — the foundation for the whole endeavor is the projections themselves. While often a very small difference exists between certain teams in terms of wins, it’s also true that two equally productive starting rotations, for example, can have very different costs (in dollars). That has an effect on how the corresponding teams can distribute salary throughout the rest of their respective rosters.

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