Archive for Teams

When discussing Bryce Harper’s year, the challenge is not to try and show that it’s been great. Rather, the challenge is to show how great his season has been. Harper leads the National League in home runs, and he leads all of major league baseball in batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage, as well. The last player to lead the majors in every triple-slash category was Barry Bonds in his 13-win 2002 season. Only a lack of RBI will prevent Harper from winning a traditional Triple Crown. Perhaps the most impressive number for Harper this season is 204 — that his, his current weighted batting line (wRC+) where 100 equals average. Harper is seeking to become only the 12th player in the last 100 years to hit the 200 makr, and only the 10th in a non-strike season, potentially joining Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds.

Before getting to wRC+, a discussion of Harper’s offensive runs above average should be helpful to frame the discussion. Harper’s offensive runs above average this season, shortened to “Off” on the FanGraphs leaderboards and player pages, is 74.2 — currently the 53rd-best mark over the past 100 seasons — and he will have shot to get in the top 40 by the end of the year. Off is a counting number and, due to its fairly direct relationship with wRC+ (Off adds BsR), we can get a general idea of how many runs different wRC+ is worth. From the FanGraphs Glossary:

Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+) measures how a player’s wRC compares with league average after controlling for park effects. League average for position players is 100, and every point above 100 is a percentage point above league average. For example, a 125 wRC+ means a player created 25% more runs than a league average hitter would have in the same number of plate appearances. Similarly, every point below 100 is a percentage point below league average, so a 80 wRC+ means a player created 20% fewer runs than league average.

The chart below shows Off, wRC+ for a small collection of players this season.

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It’s almost that time of year again, when individual hardware is bestowed on the best players in each league, complete with the requisite hue and cry from constituencies exhorting the merits of their respective choices. In general, I tend to not get too worked up about such things, but will dip my toe into such discussions when my interest is piqued. Last year, I thought that Felix Hernandez deserved to win a close decision over Corey Kluber in the AL Cy Young race. This year, the NL Cy race is a particularly interesting one, a three-way dogfight among Dodgers Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw and Cub Jake Arrieta. Today, let’s utilize the batted-ball data at our disposal and try to make a call on this exciting race.

For the two Dodger aces, this is not their first Cy Young rodeo: Kershaw has won the award in three of the last four seasons, and Greinke won one with the Royals back in 2009. As for Arrieta, well, this is the first time he has even pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. Kershaw, 27, and Greinke, 32, were slam-dunk, top-half-of-the-first-round high school blue chippers. Though Greinke has had some unique roadblocks along the way to perennial excellence, there likely aren’t many scouts who’ve watched either him or Kershaw from the beginning who are very surprised by what either has accomplished in the game.

Arrieta, 30, on the other hand, was a humble fifth-round Oriole draft pick out of TCU in 2007 who had previously been drafted out of high school and junior college. His progress through the minors was glacial compared to his Dodger peers, and he was eventually, famously dealt from the O’s to the Cubs along with Pedro Strop in exchange for Steve Clevenger and Scott Feldman in the summer of 2013. Now Clevenger has done a nice job for the Orioles of late, but I’d still surmise that they would like to have a do-over on this deal.

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“So you’re just studying oddity pitchers,” said Zach Britton over my shoulder as I took our conversation over to Darren O’Day. I bristled at the word oddity, because it implied some sort of freak-show gawking. “No! I’m into pitching, and you guys have interesting pitches,” was my earnest response. Eventually, most of the Orioles bullpen was in our scrum, talking pitching and pitches.

He wasn’t wrong, though. At the heart of that bullpen are three very… odd pitches. And checking out the three of them can teach us something about arm action.

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It’s mostly a matter of aesthetics. A little bit of pride, but, for the most part, an out is an out, if you did nothing wrong. Batters make outs most of the time, especially if the batter’s name is Trevor Cahill. The Cubs, presumably, aren’t bothered that Cahill made an out in the fifth inning on Tuesday. They would’ve expected as much, and if anything, they’d be happy about his hitting a line drive. But ultimately, Cahill was thrown out by Gregory Polanco, and he was thrown out at first base, despite his quality contact. Maybe even in part because of his quality contact. Cahill found himself the victim of a 9-3 putout, and though Cahill didn’t make any mistakes, it’s naturally the sort of play that generates attention. It can’t not be dwelt on.

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This post is not about Yoenis Cespedes’ amazing run of late for the New York Mets. Not really, anyway. You have probably heard about Cespedes since his trade to the Mets. He is hitting .302/.352/.676 with 17 home runs and a wRC+ of 179 in 193 plate appearances with his new club. Even more amazing, from August 12 through September 14, Cespedes hit .323/.379/.805 with 17 homers and a wRC+ of 220 in 145 plate appearances. During this time the Mets went 22-9 and seized control of the National League East from pre-season, early-season, and even most of late-season favorites Washington Nationals. What Cespedes has done is incredible, but he is not the only major league player to have a great run along these lines.

This post is also not about Cespedes’ MVP candidacy. Matthew Kory did a good job breaking that argument down and discussing whether Cespedes’ time in the American League should be a part of the consideration when discussing MVP. What this post is about is recognizing those performances throughout the season on the hitting side that have been up to par with Cespedes’ great run. Some of the performances are from players on winning teams, some are from non-contenders, many of these runs have been covered by various FanGraphs authors as the runs were happening, but they all deserve recognition for playing incredible baseball for a stretch at least a month long.

We’ll start with the very best players in baseball this season. Looking at the top ten in WAR on the season, we have four players from the American League, five players from the National League, and Cespedes, who has split time with both. First, Cespedes’ line, mentioned above.

Yoenis Cespedes and His Incredible Run

	Dates	PA	HR	BA	OBP	SLG	wRC+	Team W-L
Yoenis Cespedes	8/12-9/14	145	17	.323	.379	.805	220	22-9

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As Melvin Upton steps to the plate and readies for the pitch, Buster Posey appraises him. First, he looks at his feet as they dig in. Gradually, his eyes move up Upton’s body, brazenly staring as he takes in information. Down pops the sign as the catcher moves his attention to the pitcher.

It’s not just idle ogling. He’s looking for clues. Which ones?

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The introduction of the second wild-card playoff team in each league in 2012 ignited the latest in a never-ending round of debates between baseball purists and modernists. Purists argued that the expansion of the playoff field cheapened the regular season, bringing it closer in line with the other major sports in terms of percentage of teams qualifying for the postseason. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, argued that it would keep a larger number of clubs in the pennant race, hopefully jacking up attendance and TV ratings in the process. From a competitive standpoint, the change really didn’t seem to be that big of a deal. It basically pitted teams ranked somewhere between fifth and 12th in MLB’s overall pecking order in a one-game showdown, with the side benefit of no longer subjecting a division winner to a “one game and out” end after a successful regular season.

It’s a little bit different scenario this time around in the National League. If today’s standings hold up over the next three weeks, we will be treated to a baseball rarity, as the clubs with the second- and fifth-best records in all of baseball, the Pirates and Cubs, divisional rivals, face a one-game showdown for their postseason lives. For my money, this ranks right up there with any non Super Bowl one-off sporting event on the calendar; it’s a Game 7, Djokovic-Federer, and Spieth-McElroy all rolled into one. When you get down to it, it’s a matchup that would be historically rare even if the two-wild-card system had been in place since the dawn of the divisional era.

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On Aug. 22, Tampa Bay left-hander Matt Moore reminded everyone of how excellent he can be. Once a consensus top-three prospect (alongside Bryce Harper and Mike Trout), Moore was dominant. In six innings, he recorded 16 strikeouts — 13 of which came in a stretch of just 15 batters. He allowed a single run. But there’s one problem: Moore was pitching for the Durham Bulls, in a game against the Columbus Clippers.

Sad puppies.

At a point earlier in his career, Matt Moore had been an All Star; now he was in Triple-A. Why? Well, since returning from a Tommy John procedure that limited him to just two appearances in 2014, he had been, to put it not nicely but succinctly, putrid. Moore made his season debut in Tampa on July 2. Since (and including) that time, he’d made six major league starts, giving up 26 runs (all earned) in 26.2 innings. Lest you think this was a function merely of batted ball luck, consider: over those 26.2 innings, Moore had struck out 17, walked 13, and gave up four homers as well. The Rays sent him to Durham.

Moore had been an ace starter before having the surgery two starts into the 2014 season, but six starts into his return he hardly looked the part (and two starts following his return from the majors haven’t offered any counterarguments to that point). I’m not sure what Tampa’s expectations were for him, but the often less-grounded expectations of fans and media were that he’d step back into his previous role in front of the Tampa rotation, thereby forming an unbeatable duo of awesomeness (potentially with capes!) with Chris Archer. But so far it hasn’t happened. Can Matt Moore be an ace again? Was Matt Moore ever an ace? Do capes help you pitch? Why questions? How about answers!

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At 60-84, the Rockies are not merely way out of contention, but also mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. The team’s in full on rebuild mode these days, and simply put, there aren’t all that many exciting players on their roster. However, they’ve called up a couple of interesting hitters this September who could ultimately develop into useful contributors and help out the next competitive Rockies team: infielder Cristhian Adames and catcher Tom Murphy.

Cristhian Adames

Let’s start with 24-year-old Cristhian Adames, who’s a good bit closer to being ready for the big leagues than Murphy. Adames has hit a loud .391/.440/.435 in semi-regular playing time the last couple of weeks, and has played each of the past few days while filling in for the injured Jose Reyes. Over half of Adames’s balls in play have fallen for hits, which has certainly played no small role in his recent success. But even so, pushing .400 is a great way to make a positive impression.

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While working on something Erasmo Ramirez said — that his slider was always in the zone anyway, so he should probably use it to steal strikes rather than for swinging strikes — it became obvious that breaking pitches are much less effective in the zone than out when it comes to swinging strikes. Curves, in particular, are much better outside the zone. You get about one third of the whiffs on a curve in the zone as you do outside of the zone.

Separately, I’m working on a piece for The Hardball Times Annual about command. In it, a few pitchers talk about the difficulty of commanding breaking pitches. “Nobody throws anything that’s truly straight,” is how Trevor Bauer put it.

While sorting the in and out of zone whiff rates, and thinking about command, it came to me that the two are related. Maybe that’s a duh, but a big part of quantifying command is the problem of breaking balls and changeups and their movement. A breaking ball in the zone may often be a hung breaking ball, which contributes to the lower whiff rates.

Let’s take a look at the pitchers that have the most disparate results on their non fastballs inside and outside the zone first, and then try to find a way to spot these pitchers by movement.

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