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A little more than a decade ago, an undersized, often-overlooked second baseman climbed the ranks through the minor leagues and made his debut in Boston, peppering line drives off the Green Monster in Fenway Park’s left field while capturing the hearts of Red Sox fans with his aggressive and well-rounded style of play.

After 10 years of Dustin Pedroia, watching Mookie Betts burst onto the scene over the last two years must be like déjà vu in Boston.

Of course, the players have their differences, the most obvious being Betts’ place in the outfield. His move from his natural place at second base was dictated by Pedroia’s presence at the position. But the similarities in stature, and approach, cannot be understated:

In the early stages of his career, Betts has put the ball in the air a bit more often, and thus hit for a bit more power. Pedroia’s struck out less and gotten on base slightly more. But these differences are minuscule; both have an elite control of the strike zone due to their ability to make a ton of contact while possessing the eye to draw a good number of walks. And the most striking similarity is that both inflict massive damage to the pull field.

Highest pull-field wRC+, 2015

1. Kris Bryant, 290
2. Bryce Harper, 261
3. Colby Rasmus, 260
4. Edwin Encarnacion, 257
5. Mookie Betts, 254

Last year, Betts was one of the five best pull hitters in the game, his name appearing alongside four of baseball’s best power hitters in overall pull production despite his 5-foot-9 frame. His power output to the pull side, admittedly aided somewhat by the Green Monster, exceeded that of Josh Donaldson’s. Pedroia, meanwhile, has been among baseball’s most consistent pull threats for a decade.

Red Sox hitting coach Chili Davis is quick to point out, though, that while both do the brunt of their damage to the pull side, neither hitter goes to the plate with a pull-field approach.

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We have launch angle for all batted balls last year! We’re still in the infancy of Statcast, and there have been some wiggles in the wobble so far, but with the new update to Baseball Savant, it looks like we can search all batted balls for launch angle. I’m giddy.

This should give us the chance to all sorts of great things later, but for now I’ll do something relatively simple that’s relevant to the newest big slugger in the game, Matt Duffy. We all knew he’d bust out like this, and now we know why.

Turn back to Alan Nathan’s excellent post on the long ball yesterday at The Hardball Times. It’s full of nerdy goodness, but there’s also a fun little factoid that runs through most of his analysis: the ideal launch angle for a home run is between 25 and 30 degrees. Given a certain exit velocity, that range is where distance on a batted ball peaks:

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It took only three games for us to be able to refer to Trevor Story as a rookie sensation. For the most part, this is because Story is currently out-homering most of the teams in major-league baseball. He got Zack Greinke twice on opening day, and that’s remarkable enough, but Story homered again in each of the following two contests, so now here we are, with Story owning four dingers before the overwhelming majority of rookie players are even called up so as to preserve that extra year of control. Hot start. We’re good at noticing hot starts.

After the hot start will come a cooler period. In time, when we have more information, Story will resemble some kind of familiar shortstop, and we’ll have a better idea of how he’s going to work out. In the long run, I mean. The reality is we don’t know that much more now than we did a week ago. This is the hazard of trying to talk about anything so early in a season, and so early in a career. But the word “irresponsibly” is right in that headline. I think we can allow ourselves to have some fun. What’s the downside? So let’s discuss just a few notable observations. Exactly what they mean, I’ll leave to time to settle.

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FanGraphs uses Slack in order to keep all the writers in communication, and it’s in there that we claim post topics so that we don’t accidentally overlap. A couple days ago, I made a soft commitment to write about Aaron Sanchez’s secondary stuff, regardless of how he actually did on Tuesday. The way I figured, one way or the other, it was going to be worth an article. Now, what I didn’t know was that the Rays/Blue Jays game would end with a very 2016 type of controversial call. That’s overshadowed everything else, and few care anymore about how Sanchez did in the earlier innings. But I’m here to fulfill my commitment. And, guess what: I’ve long been a Sanchez skeptic, as his being a starter is concerned, but he had a wonderful, wonderful outing, before the Jose Bautista slide. He made it very easy to be encouraged.

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Let’s talk about the King. Felix Hernandez lost his start on opening day. In one sense, it was just the same old Mariners — Felix allowed one earned run, and literally just one hit, a fly-ball blooper into the shallow outfield. So, that makes it sound crazy, but Felix also walked five batters in six innings, and put a sixth on base by hitting him. Fewer than 60% of his pitches were strikes, which would be a bad mark for anyone, and Felix acknowledged he wasn’t working like himself. The plus side, naturally, is that he still wasn’t hittable. But he was kind of wild, and — and — his velocity was down.

It was down a full couple ticks. This follows a string of appearances in spring when Felix was below his previous velocity. That wasn’t a big deal then, but it’s a bigger deal now, with the season underway. According to PITCHf/x, Felix threw just two pitches at at least 91 miles per hour. Last year’s average fastball was 91.8. Every so often, there can be these blips — in one April start in 2013, Felix threw just one pitch north of 91 — yet this could be a developing pattern. And it’s worth taking a step back to consider just how far Felix’s velocity has fallen.

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Jake Lamb is off to a solid start in the production department. The left-handed-hitting third baseman homered in Arizona’s opener, and he doubled in game two. There’s more where that came from. Lamb slugged just .386 in 109 games with the Diamondbacks last year, but he did so as a young player with a foot injury. In three-plus seasons on the farm, he slashed .321/.408/.552.

Lamb isn’t without his supporters as he heads into his age-25 season. Eno Sarris has predicted he’ll hit 20 home runs, and just last week August Fagerstrom called him one of the Real Winners of Spring Training.

Lamb discussed his hitting approach, which includes a healthy dose of line drives to the left-center-field gap, prior to the D-Backs breaking camp to begin the 2016 campaign.

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Lamb on his up-the-middle approach: “For the most part, my stock approach is to hit the ball hard to center field. I’m trying to line out to the center fielder. In saying that, what I really want is to hit a low line drive. If I’m a little late on a heater, hopefully I’ll hit it over the shortstop. If I’m a little early, it will be the right-center gap.

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Aroldis Chapman was supposed to be a starter. Maybe supposed is a strong word, but when he debuted in professional baseball as a 22-year-old out of Cuba in Triple-A, he did so as a starting pitcher, and if not for injuries to then-Reds closer Ryan Madson and a handful of other Cincinnati relief pitchers, the club seemed prepared to have Chapman open the 2012 season in the starting rotation.

But those injuries happened, and Chapman instead returned to the bullpen, where he’d pitched for the previous season and a half. He returned to the bullpen, he was handed the keys to the ninth inning, and he hasn’t given them back since. Watching Chapman on the baseball field in the ninth inning has been a treat all these years, but it’s always felt like something of a missed opportunity. Sure, we see the 104 mph fastball and the strikeout rates over 50%, but it’s almost felt like cheating, in a sense. It’s all still remarkable, yeah, but this is a guy who could start, throwing just one inning at a time.

Don’t we all want to see what he could do if he came out in the first and pitched as deep as he could every game? Aren’t we curious how much of the stuff would carry over during the transition? Wouldn’t it be fun if Chapman didn’t lose anything, and routinely threw six or seven innings with the same caliber stuff he throws in the ninth? At some point over the last couple years, we’ve all accepted the fact that we’d probably never get to see it in action, Aroldis Chapman the starter.

And then Noah Syndergaard made his first start of the 2016 season.

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On Monday, Astros manager A.J. Hinch told reporters that Luke Gregerson would start the season as his team’s closer. Given Gregerson’s successful stint as closer in 2015 and his general track record of success in recent years, such an announcement might sound like a formality. After all, “Team’s Good Closer to Remain Closer” is not exactly newsworthy.

What made the announcement interesting is that over the winter the Astros traded Vincent Velasquez, Mark Appel, Thomas Eshelman, Harold Arauz, and Brett Oberholtzer to the Phillies for Ken Giles and Jonathan Arauz. Giles, as you likely know, had been extraordinary in relief over his first 115.2 innings in the majors and could easily be considered one of the best five or ten relievers in the game. Naming Gregerson the closer and Giles the setup man raised some eyebrows given the price the Astros paid to acquire Giles four months prior.

It doesn’t matter if you subscribe to the projections, recent performance, or a simple visual analysis of their stuff, Giles grades out better. We project he’ll beat Gregerson’s ERA and FIP by 0.30 to 0.40 runs this year and Gregerson has never had a season on par with Giles’ performance to date. Both generate lots of swinging strikes, but Giles has the velocity that appeals to scouts. Gregerson is a very good reliever, but there isn’t a plausible case to be made that he’s better than Giles. Yet when Hinch went to the bullpen on Tuesday, it was Giles in the eighth and Gregerson in the ninth.

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That didn’t take long. Just a few days into the season, we have a controversial play relating to the slide rule instituted this offseason. Last night, trailing 3-2 in the top of the ninth with the bases loaded and one out, Toronto Blue Jays batter Edwin Encarnacion hit a ground ball to Rays third baseman Evan Longoria. Longoria threw to second base to force out Jose Bautista, who had been running from first base. As second baseman Logan Forsythe attempted to throw the ball to first base for an inning-ending double play, Bautista’s arm caught Forsythe’s foot, Forsythe’s throw went awry, Encarnacion was safe, and two runs scored. Officials overturned the call, ruling that Bautista violated Rule 6.01 for interference and Encarnacion was declared out at first, ending the game in favor of Tampa Bay.

Those are the basic facts of what happened last night, and while the interpretation of the rule might be subject to criticism, there can be little dispute about what happened. There is also likely little dispute about the impetus of the new rule — player safety — and that last night’s play had little to do with player safety. That leads to a couple questions. Like, was the rule interpreted correctly? And like, should the slide rule cover plays like Bautista’s when little harm is likely to come on the play?

Before we take a look at the play, let’s consider the precise language of the new rule itself. Rule 6.01(j) is the relevant one here, titled “Sliding to Bases on Double Play Attempts”. So what does the runner have to do?

If a runner does not engage in a bona fide slide, and initiates (or attempts to make) contact with the fielder for the purpose of breaking up a double play, he should be called for interference under this Rule 6.01.

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It’s anecdotal of course, of little value maybe, but when you’re talking to Carlos Rodon these days, you get a different feeling than you might have last year. He’s more… comfortable. He’s not a rookie anymore. “Knowing you belong” is really important, as he put it to me.

But the reason he knows he belongs now is that he had a great second half last year. He agreed that went a long way to calming the nerves. But anyone can have a great half without a major adjustment, only to see things change once again at the whim of the baseball gods.

The good news is that Rodon made two huge adjustments last year that coincided with the start of his run. That suggests it wasn’t luck. That suggests that Rodon has found something that can help him walk fewer batters. And that’s about all that stands between Rodon and a breakout season.

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