Archive for Teams

The Nationals have not played very well in the second half. This isn’t news. Since the break, they have an 8-12 record and have been outscored by 11 runs. This isn’t a soul-crushing stretch by any means, but when your competition is red hot, a stretch where you’re only scoring 3.65 runs per game can certainly seem soul crushing. The interesting question to me is what the Nationals can do about it? Are they content to just wait this out and take the patient approach that eventually their hitters will snap out of it, or is it time for action? Actually, let’s rephrase that — what actions can the Nationals even take?

We know that the Nationals have a great pitching staff. Their bullpen unit is solid. The core unit they’ve relied on the most the past 30 days — Aaron Barrett, Casey Janssen, Felipe Rivero, Tanner Roark and Drew Storen — has done pretty well. The worst xFIP- among those pitchers for the past 30 days is Rivero’s 114. For the season, the highest belongs to Janssen at 108. Perhaps there isn’t enough reliability in that group, especially given Storen’s playoff experience. So to that mix they have added Jonathan Papelbon. Potential problem addressed.
Read the rest of this entry »

As he celebrates his 24th birthday, it’s worth asking if there’s anything Mike Trout can’t do. In any case, there apparently is one more thing he can do.

It got lost in the haze of the week of the trade deadline, but I want to take you back to a recent Trout performance against the Rangers. Let’s look at a pitch that Nick Martinez threw. The approximate location:

Clearly low, clearly inside (relative to the middle of the plate). Trout swung, and this is where the ball went:

Home run, right field. Now, for a lot of players, it’s enough to hit one home run. I’ve set up what’s going to follow. A full-count pitch later in the same game, thrown by Spencer Patton:

Another pitch in. Another Trout swing. The result:

That, to the opposite side of center field. Twice in one game, Trout went deep. Twice in one game, Trout went deep to what could technically be referred to as the opposite field. Twice in one game, Mike Trout did that on inside pitches. Intuitively, that seems like a hard thing to do. When you think about it, it follows that inside pitches get pulled, and outside pitches get pushed. That is, generally, the way things go, at least when you’re talking about balls hit with authority. But, see, Trout has learned something.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

The first inning of a debut is a sweaty time. Just look at Henry Owens as he stepped to the mound for the first time in the big leagues this past week. Your heart strains for him — not only in sympathy, but also because it’s just so obvious that his blood is racing through his veins and his vision is blurry. You can almost feel it just watching him.

You can see plainly that that the major league debut was full of butterflies for Owens. And so it was for Luis Severino. Just in a different way than most.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every so often, someone asks where I got my start. My first online conversations about baseball took place on the ESPN message boards, and I’m a Mariners fan, and that was back when the Mariners mattered. Around the turn of the millennium, the Mariners were entering the best era in franchise history. Between 2000 – 2003, the Mariners racked up more regular-season wins than anybody else. They ultimately crashed, and crashed hard, but four strong teams were built. Four competitive teams were built. It was terrific, except for the thing that was missing. In 2003, the Marlins of all teams won that thing. There was much debate over what a fan really wants. Say what you will about the Marlins, but they’ve brought home a couple trophies.

Here, I ask you what some might consider a fundamental question. There’s a poll at the end of this, and I want you to try to answer honestly, as a fan who’s presumably something more than just a casual observer. I’m going to go ahead and update my Mariners and Marlins examples. There are current(ish) teams who can fill the same roles. We’re all more familiar with what’s current!

Read the rest of this entry »

Why yes: performance. If you want to argue that Carlos Correa is already baseball’s best shortstop, you can simply point to his performance, and to the performances of the other shortstops. What could be easier? Correa, of course, hasn’t played a full 2015 season, but he has batted a couple hundred times, so let’s look at the numbers and keep them all above a common, 600-plate-appearance denominator. Do that and Correa comes out as a top-10 position player. The closest shortstop, by WAR, is Brandon Crawford, who trails by just about two wins. Whatever you think of the error bars in WAR, two wins per 600 plate appearances is a big margin. The argument, in other words, has decent support.

Why no: projections. Statistics reflect talent, but they can also mislead. It can be better to refer to the projections, as they can be a decent proxy for current estimated true talent. Projections don’t suffer from recency bias. They don’t suffer from hype, and they don’t suffer from any sort of overreactions. Looking at the shortstop depth-chart projections, and putting WAR over 600 plate appearances, Correa is basically tied with Crawford and Jhonny Peralta, a win behind Troy Tulowitzki. Some months ago, Tulowitzki was the unquestioned best shortstop in baseball. How much should we really reconsider, after part of one season?

If you choose to believe Tulowitzki remains the best shortstop, that’s fine. It’s totally justifiable, and Correa still doesn’t have an extended track record. Could have a slump just ahead of him. Could be a bad one. But as absurd as it might sound, Correa really does have an argument of his own. He’s been that good to date, and if you don’t believe he’s better than Tulowitzki yet, it seems only a matter of time until the trend lines intersect. One of them turns 31 in two months. One of them can finally buy his own drink in a month and a half.

Read the rest of this entry »

Whenever a pitcher rises to a month’s worth of greatness, there’s always luck involved. And so, Chris Tillman — like most of the other nine in his class — spent July with a batting average on balls in play closer to .250 than .300. But when Tillman spent July dealing, he did so in a way he hadn’t done before in the big leagues. Underneath that luck were some adjustments that might be a big deal for the pitcher going forward.

Read the rest of this entry »

Madison Bumgarner starts for the Giants today, in Atlanta. That’s good for them, for two reasons. One, it means the Giants get to have Bumgarner pitch. Two, it means the Giants get to have Bumgarner hit. Bumgarner regularly dazzles in batting practice, and that isn’t where his ability is confined — in his most recent start in an NL ballpark, he went deep. Bumgarner was outspoken in his disagreement with Max Scherzer earlier in the year, when Scherzer lobbied for the NL to adopt the designated hitter. Bumgarner, see, takes pride in his slugging, and he wouldn’t want to lose that advantage.

Not that Bumgarner was always much at the plate. As recently as 2013, he was a mess, like pretty much every other pitcher. But then he devoted more attention to the offensive side of things, and his successes have been numerous and remarkable. In honor of Bumgarner’s hitting, then, I’ve put together this poll-post, comparing Bumgarner and Josh Hamilton. Hamilton has obviously been a disappointment since signing his nine-figure contract, but he remains a threat, batting fifth or sixth in a Rangers lineup with a lot of name value. Below, there will be six polls, for six statistics. I’ll show you the high value, and ask you to pick which guy is responsible. Answers are revealed at the end. Good luck!

Read the rest of this entry »

On July 24, in what amounted to my FanGraphs debut, I wrote in so many words that Matt Harrison is – and I quote – “back.” Well, he’s back, all right – back on the disabled list, not only with stiffness in the surgically repaired back that kept him sidelined for the better – or, really, worse – part of two years but also with a diagnosis of hypothyroidism.

As I wrote in so many words: mercy.
Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t ask Corey Kluber if he throws a curveball or a slider. There’s only one response, and it will be so deadpan it’s almost a whisper on the wind: “Breaking ball.” Maybe it doesn’t matter, but maybe it does. But what is that breaking ball?

Read the rest of this entry »

The Yankees rotation is looking rather thin these days. After losing Michael Pineda to a forearm injury, the team was left with a gaping hole in their rotation behind Masahiro Tanaka, Nathan Eovaldi, Ivan Nova and CC Sabathia. Even before Pineda’s injury, the team already had a hole at the back of their rotation in Sabathia, whose days as a productive pitcher appear to be well behind him. Overall, that’s an underwhelming rotation for team that’s likely headed to the playoffs.

Somewhat curiously, the Yankees didn’t acquire any rotation help at the trade deadline. Even more curiously, it doesn’t seem like they made much of an effort to do so. Instead, they seemed more interested in fortifying the back of their bullpen, which is already one of the best in baseball.

The imminent arrival of top prospect Luis Severino may have been the primary reason for the Yankees’ inaction. Minutes after the non-waiver trade deadline had passed, Brian Cashman revealed the 21-year-old’s next start would be in the big leagues. He debuts tonight against the Red Sox.

Severino has little left to prove in the minor leagues. The hard-throwing righty split time between Double-A and Triple-A this year, where he recorded FIPs of 2.34 and 2.53, respectively. Severino was similarly dominant last season, when he rattled off a 2.46 ERA and 2.46 FIP across three minor league levels: Low-A, High-A and Double-A. Read the rest of this entry »