Archive for Teams

We live in the age of multiple playoff levels and one of the results of this is we get many different playoff winners, and each playoff winner has to have a playoff winner celebration. Celebrations used to be more sedate than they are now, but things have changed since Don Larsen struck out Bill Mitchell and jogged solemnly off the mound after having thrown the first and to date only perfect game in the World Series. No big deal, really, when you think about it. Today, though, players never miss a chance to jump up and down and yell and celebrate and be happy. This being FanGraphs though, we can’t simply observe this behavior. We have to analyze it. Because we hate baseball.

Last Thursday in a match up between a team we thought might go to the post-season and a team named the Royals, the Royals beat the Mariners 10-4 to clinch their first AL Central division title ever. Seriously. The last time the Royals won a division title they were in a different division. The final out came when Kyle Seager grounded out weakly to first baseman Eric Hosmer. Here was the scene before contact.

Oops, sorry. Wrong kind of contact. Let’s try that again.

There we go.

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Other teams are clinching divisions, and Nationals players are fighting one another. Not that players on good teams haven’t fought, and not that the Nationals’ incident was in some way unique, but this isn’t how it was supposed to go. A few days ago, the Nationals were mathematically eliminated from winning the division, and in reality it feels like it’s been even longer. They haven’t been within three games of the Mets since August 11. They’re currently behind by 9.5, and only the AL Central has a bigger gap between first and second place — by a half-game. It’s not an exaggeration to say the Nationals are feeling pretty embarrassed.

This is all review to you, but it’s not like the Nationals were simply the favorites. They didn’t come in with slightly better odds than any of their rivals. After the Max Scherzer acquisition, Bryce Harper talked about rings, and the only issue there was Harper was expressing what the rest of us thought. It looked like the Nationals would win the East in a landslide. Our projections figured as much. The PECOTA projections figured as much. The Clay Davenport projections figured as much. The whole entire media figured as much. And it wasn’t just about looking forward. Between 2012 – 2014, the Nationals won more games than any other team in baseball. They had 280 wins, and their closest division rival had 269. Those were the Braves, who were rebuilding. The Nationals looked good, and they didn’t have a serious threat.

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Over the weekend, the Mets officially won the National League East, though thanks to the meltdown in Washington — which now includes Jonathan Papelbon publicly choking Bryce Harper, with his manager apparently doing an impression of an ostrich while it happened — the accomplishment has been somewhat overshadowed in the news cycle. And it’s pretty obvious that, with the Nats falling apart at seemingly every opportunity, the NL East was the easiest division in in the league to win; even after sweeping the Reds over the weekend, the Mets still have just the fourth best record in the NL.

But lost in the shuffle of the MVP getting assaulted on TV, along with the Cubs and Pirates getting us all tuned up for what might be the best Wild Card game we’ll ever see, the Mets were quietly setting up their playoff roster, and the results of that tune-up should scare the crap out of the other four playoff teams.

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There is no one single way to be good at baseball, which is part of why it’s so amazing. Just last week we peeked into the mind of a man with one of the lowest swing rates in baseball when we asked Joey Votto how he does it. And this week? Let’s ask Adrian Beltre.

“I’m probably the opposite,” Beltre laughed when he heard Votto’s name. “I’m thinking swing first and take second. I don’t have that discipline.”

It’s hard to argue with him, but he has been a top-ten all-time third baseman. “It’s probably not the way to do it,” he said with that trademarked smile, “but it has worked for me.”

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Toward the end of April, things weren’t looking so hot for Pirates relief ace Mark Melancon. His velocity was down — way down — and Pirates manager Clint Hurdle was beginning to field questions about Melancon’s job security. Fast forward to September, and it seems like ages ago that we were even discussing this in a serious matter, because Melancon is on the verge of a historic season.

It would have been hard to claim that Melancon would go on to have such a great season back in April. Hurdle’s proclamation that Melancon would remain the closer was met with derision. The Bullpen Report guys moved Melancon and the Pirates closer situation into the red for the first time on April 22. The velocity on his cutter, which in the past had averaged 92 mph or faster, was averaging 88 mph. In the days immediately after April 22, his velocity would dip into the 87 mph range. Hardly big league worthy. At the same time, Arquimedes Caminero was making a name for himself, and it seemed like only a matter of time before the guy who might just be the right-handed Aroldis Chapman would take over as the Pirates closer. Or if not him, then perhaps the dependable Tony Watson. Or maybe Jared Hughes. Either way, it looked like Melancon’s days were numbered.
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Astros shortstop Carlos Correa turned 21 years old just three days ago. That would have been a much more dramatic opening line if we weren’t living through the Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, and Manny Machado Era, but it’s a relatively dramatic opening nonetheless. Correa has looked like one of MLB’s premier players over his first 90 games and 390 plate appearances all while being younger than Bryce Harper. And Bryce Harper is very young.

It’s not much of a surprise that Carlos Correa is a great baseball player. In fact, Correa was supposed to be a great player. He was taken first overall by the Astros in 2012, and while some people saw it as a way to free up money for later picks, no one disputed him as a top-level draft target. Correa’s been an elite prospect his entire career, occupying the fifth spot on Kiley’s Top 200 entering the season, and the third spot on the Baseball Prospectus and ESPN (Insider) lists.

The particularly remarkable aspect of Correa’s 2015 season is not that he’s hitting 32% better than league average or that he’s gathered 3.1 WAR in under 400 plate appearances; the remarkable part is that he’s doing so in 2015. While Correa’s potential was widely acknowledged, no one really seemed to expect it to arrive so soon. Kiley filed a report on him in October of 2014, giving him present Hit and Game Power grades of 20 to go along with a “2017 ETA.”

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There’s no simple explanation for why the Rangers are in first place in the AL West. I mean, there kind of is, if you accept “they have the best record” as an explanation, but for explaining that record — it’s complicated. And the Rangers, of course, didn’t even look like a fringe contender for months. They’ve mostly come on strong since the All-Star break, and some of that’s because of Shin-Soo Choo. Some of that’s because of Adrian Beltre. Some of that’s because of a much-improved bullpen. And some of that’s because of Elvis Andrus.

This might be the easiest way to lay things out. You know Wins Above Replacement, or WAR? Famous statistic. Flawed statistic, but famous and useful statistic. Andrus, this year, has been worth 1.1 WAR. Here’s a neat little breakdown of that:

First Half: 0.0 WAR
Second Half: 1.1 WAR

It’s not that Andrus literally didn’t do anything in the first half, but if you’re looking for when he’s been valuable, it’s almost all about the past couple months. As he’s come on, the Rangers have come on. And though Andrus still hasn’t been a great hitter, he’s certainly been a lot better. He’s always been able to handle himself in the field. More recently, he’s been someone to pay attention to at the plate.

If you’re looking for something that’s changed, nothing too dramatic happened midseason. It’s incredibly difficult to work in big changes on the fly, with games every day, and midseason work is mostly about tweaks. Andrus, though, has been tinkering. He’s made little modifications to his hands and to his leg kick. He says he’s starting to feel comfortable. And that’s where it gets particularly interesting, because the big change didn’t happen two months ago. It happened between seasons.

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On Monday night, the Biloxi Shuckers, the Brewers Double-A affiliate, fell to Chattanooga in the Southern League championship. Following the loss, the Brewers rewarded several members of the Biloxi squad with promotions to the big leagues. Among Tuesday’s call-ups were: outfielder Michael Reed, infielder Yadiel Rivera, and right-handed pitchers Yhonathan Barrios, Adrian Houser, Jorge Lopez and Tyler Wagner. Let’s have a look at what the data have to say about these prospects. (Note: WAR figures represent projected WAR totals through age-28 season, according to KATOH system.)

Michael Reed, 4.5 WAR

Michael Reed opened the year with Double-A Biloxi, and was promoted to Triple-A on August 1st. He was later reassigned to Double-A for the playoffs to get a few more reps. All told, the 22-year-old hit a respectable .270/.377/.408 on the year with an impressive 27 stolen bases.

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Marcus Stroman isn’t David Price. Maybe, if Stroman had been healthy all year, the Jays wouldn’t have gotten Price at the deadline, so Stroman would be their No. 1, but that isn’t how things went, so Price is No. 1, and Stroman’s looking to be No. 2. Stroman himself would happily concede that Price is on another level, but then, just about every World Series-winning team ever has needed more than one starting pitcher, and this is where Stroman becomes important. It’s a minor miracle to just see Stroman already back on the field, but his own focus is on starting and helping. It’s gone beyond just getting healthy. And if Wednesday’s any indication, Stroman’s rounding into top form with the playoffs coming up.

Stroman has made three big-league starts since returning, pushing his pitch count close to 100. His first start came in New York, and he managed a half-decent five innings. Wednesday, he faced the Yankees again, only this time in Toronto, and he worked his way through seven, allowing no runs while striking out five. In easily the biggest game of his life, Stroman rose to the occasion, reducing any doubts he might not be ready to help. And it’s interesting to note just how Stroman looked. Two times out of three, Stroman has faced the Yankees. And the second time, owing in part to Stroman’s broad repertoire, the hitters saw a different pitcher.

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Sam Fuld was checking out his FanGraphs page the other day, and noticed that he’s a fairly fast-paced guy at the plate. He produced in 2011 the 36th-fastest pace between that season and the present one (minimum 300 plate appearances), and he’s the 20th-fastest paced batter this year. He also noticed something about the guys around him. “They’re all slap hitters!” he told me before a game against the Rangers.

He wondered if pace was correlated to power, and if this slower pace came through the mechanism of confidence. “I’m the star here,” he said, mimicking a step back out of the box and a shrug of the shoulders that’s a little foreign to the Athletics outfielder with 12 career home runs spread over nine years and 1500-plus plate appearances.

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