Archive for Teams

Troy Tulowitzki has been an integral piece of the Rockies lineup for years now. He’s racked up an impressive 34 WAR in his 10 seasons in Colorado, but it’s not clear if he’ll be a part of the team’s future plans. And if he is, it’s not clear that he should be.

The Rockies don’t have the looks of a playoff team this year. This is partly because they’re 11-17 and bringing up the rear in the National League West. However, even before the season began, the Rockies looked more like existers than contenders. Given the collection of players on their roster, they appear to be something worse than a .500 team on paper.

Teams like this don’t have much use for an aging star shortstop. As a result, it very well might be in Colorado’s best interest to hit the reset button and trade Tulowitzki in exchange for players who stand a better chance of helping the next playoff-bound Rockies team. After nearly a decade of Troy Tulowitzki at shortstop, it might be time for the Rockies to move on.

That brings us to Trevor Story. If Colorado does ultimately deal Tulo, and his replacement comes from within, Story will likely be the man getting the nod. Not all that long ago, Story looked like a big league shortstop in the making. The Rockies selected him 45th overall out of high school in 2011, and he quickly became a consensus top 100 prospect after a .277/.367/.505 performance as a teenager in the South Atlantic League. At that point, it seemed like he was only a couple of years away from knocking at the door of the big leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

Breaking out for three consecutive years certainly has some positive elements to it, but it also means that the first two breakouts did not completely take. After failing to make the rotation out of Spring Training, Danny Salazar might have moved himself from potential breakout star to post-hype sleeper. After his hot start, the sleeper tag has been removed, and only a potential star remains. Salazar has had periods of dominance in each of the last last three seasons, but those dominant stretches have been followed by problem periods. This is now the fourth time Salazar has been called upon to for an extended role in Cleveland’s rotation, and Salazar, helped by his previous experiences, is now pitching as well as anyone in Major League Baseball. Consider his first roughly-30 innings each time.
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At the very bottom of the 2015 standings, you’ll find two unsurprising teams tied for the worst record in baseball: the Phillies and the Brewers. The Brewers have been a disaster, already firing their manager, and the Phillies are paying the piper for years of making moves to maximize short-term returns. But do you know which team is only a half game ahead of that pair of disasters? Well, you probably do if you clicked on this post, given that I put them in the subject, but yes, it’s the Oakland A’s, who currently stand at 12-21 after getting swept in Seattle over the weekend.

The A’s were expected to take a step back this year after trading away Josh Donaldson and a bunch of his friends, but while they spent the first half of the winter getting younger, they also went out and landed Ben Zobrist, Billy Butler, and Tyler Clippard, showing that they weren’t just punting on 2015. While they churned half the roster in an effort to set themselves up better for the future, this was supposed to be a team that could at least hang around the Wild Card race and maybe make another run at a division title if things broke right. Instead, after weeks of baseball, the A’s are 8.5 games behind the Astros, and their playoff odds have shrunk from 33% on Opening Day to 15% today.

While it’s still early enough to turn things around, there is a point at which the hole gets too big to dig out of, especially because other teams will likely start calling about impending free agents like Zobrist, Clippard, and Scott Kazmir in the next month or so. If they don’t start winning pretty soon, you can bet that Billy Beane won’t hesitate to make another flurry of trades to bring in even more young talent, so the A’s clock is ticking, and it won’t be too long before they have to decide if they’re in it for 2015 or not. Despite their miserable start to the season, I wouldn’t suggest giving up on this A’s team just quite yet.

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As I check the latest version of the leaderboard, I see that Michael Pineda currently leads all pitchers in WAR. Granted, it’s by only a little. Granted, a chunk of that just happened Sunday. And granted, WAR is a rough tool, especially for pitchers. Lots of stuff going on there. But something we know for sure: higher-WAR pitchers are better than lower-WAR pitchers. The guys at the top of the leaderboard are better than the guys at the bottom. And Pineda’s got an extraordinary strikeout-and-walk differential. Not only is it really good; in terms of K% – BB%, Pineda has gotten better by 10 percentage points, relative to last season. Only Danny Salazar is showing a bigger step forward so far in the American League.

Whenever you see a bump in performance like that, you have to wonder what changed. The first place a lot of people look is repertoire. And looking at the repertoire has a few steps — people look for new pitches, or new movement on old pitches, or new pitch mixes, or changing velocities. Sometimes people also look for changed release points. So goes the search for improvement explanations. As for Michael Pineda? He’s not throwing anything new. He hasn’t changed his movements or his arm slot, and his pitch mix is fairly similar. His pitches aren’t going faster. The explanation here seems to be one of the most difficult to prove, but also the simplest to convey. Pineda, from the looks of things, just has better command.

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Mike Foltynewicz’s future role for the Atlanta Braves is still in doubt. He brings a high-90s four-seam fastball that should play well out of the bullpen or as a starter, but his secondary offerings might not be good enough to consistently get hitters out at the Major League Baseball level. Acquired in a trade for Evan Gattis in the offseason, Foltynewicz has started two games for the Braves this season after 16 bullpen appearances for the Houston Astros last season. Results have been mixed thus far. In 10 1/3 innings this year, Foltynewicz has struck out nine but walked six, giving up seven runs and averaging an unsustainable 19 pitches per inning. Foltynewicz will need to be more efficient if he is to remain a starter, and the increased use of his sinker his second start of the season provides him with weapons to get quicker outs, more strikes, and help set up his big fourseam fastball and still-developing slider.

Foltynewicz’s fourseam fastball has been the 23-year-old’s bread and butter, sitting “95-98 mph and has hit 100 mph as a starter” per Kiley McDaniel’s write-up in his analysis of the Braves prospects. Last season in relief, Foltynewicz used his fastball roughly 50% of the time, averaging 98 miles per hour out of the bullpen, per Brooks Baseball. He mixed in a curve, sinker, and change, but did not throw any of those offerings more than one quarter of the time.

In his first start of the season against the Cincinnati Reds, he relied on his fastball even more than 2014, throwing 60 four-seam fastballs among his 94 pitches. He might not have had the feel for his change as he threw that pitch just four times in the outing, mixing in a curve and sinker for his remaining pitches. For Foltynewicz’s four-seamer to be successful, it likely needs to stay up in the zone to get swings and misses. Here is the pitch plot from his first start.

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Andrew McCutchen has been bad. I think I’m allowed to say that. Used to be, it was just a bad start. It’s still a bad start, but we’re a week into May, so that “just” is disappearing by the second. Attention to this thing is warranted.

Now, at any given time, lots of baseball players are in the midst of being bad. What’s weird about McCutchen being bad, in particular, is that he’s usually not. He goes beyond just being an All-Star; he’s one of the five best players in the game today. The spotlight shines a little brighter, and so when things are going awry, people notice.

How much do I need to go over, here? I know McCutchen’s numbers are bad. You know McCutchen’s numbers are bad. I don’t need to review a ton of information proving as much. Here, let’s just look at one graph. As I write this, McCutchen has played 26 games in 2015. Below, his whole career, in rolling 26-game stretches of OPS. Pretty simple measure of hot streaks and cold spells:

Two things to take from that. One, McCutchen has had bad 26-game stretches before. They’ve just been tucked into the middle of seasons, rather than being right at the start, all conspicuous-like. Two, McCutchen has been quite bad this season. As far as the graph above is concerned, McCutchen has achieved a career minimum. It’s not proof that something’s wrong, but it’s enough to make you wonder.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

Carlos Gonzalez is slumping. That isn’t news to you, unless you don’t really pay that much attention to the Colorado Rockies. Even then, it still might not be news to you. Gonzalez, who from 2010-2013 hit 108 homers (tied for 18th-best in the game), and posted a .245 ISO (ninth-best) and 103.4 Off (13th-best), is knee deep in a slump that seemingly has no end. If true, the question then becomes what do the Rockies do with him, because it might be impossible to trade him.

First, let’s see if we can figure out what exactly the issues are. Let’s begin with batted ball distance. Jeff Zimmerman has set up his handy batted ball distance search over at Baseball Heat Maps, and here we see that for the first five years of Gonzalez’s time with the Rockies, his was fairly consistent. He was right around 300 feet each season, with an overall average of 309.277′. Last year, that dropped quite a bit, down to 295.891′, and this season he is at 280.565. That’s nearly a 30 foot drop over the span of two seasons. Perhaps not predictive of how he will fare for the remainder of 2015, but it’s certainly not a great sign.

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I wrote yesterday about the uncertainty surrounding the #1 overall pick, but that doesn’t keep scouts from trying to figure out who will go in the subsequent picks. It’s way too early to have any real idea what’s going to happen beyond the top 10-15 picks, but the buzz is growing in the scouting community about how things will play out and you people are sustained by lists, predictions and mock drafts. You’re welcome.

I’d bet it’s more telling on draft day to make judgments using the buzz and all the names I mention, rather than the one name I project to be picked, but you guys already don’t read the introduction, so I’ll shut up. For reports, video and more on these players, check out my latest 2015 MLB Draft rankings, or, if your team doesn’t pick high this year, look ahead with my 2016 & 2017 MLB Draft rankings.

UPDATE 5/11/15: Notes from this weekend’s college games: Dillon Tate was solid in front of GM’s from Arizona, Houston and Colorado. Dansby Swanson was even better, in front of decision makers from all the top teams, including Houston, who may still be debating whether they’d take Swanson or Rodgers if given the choice (Rodgers’ season is over). Carson Fulmer did what he usually does and probably has a home from picks 7-17 depending on how things fall on draft day, with an evaluation similar to Marcus Stroman and Sonny Gray as previous undersized righties with stellar track records and plus stuff.

Andrew Benintendi went nuts at the plate again (I’ll see him and Fulmer this weekend). And, finally, Jon Harris was excellent, rebounding from a not-so-great start, so, at this point, I would make Harris the 9th pick to the Cubs and slide Trenton Clark down a few picks, but still comfortably in the top 20. I also updated the 2016 MLB Draft Rankings as a few top prospects came off the DL and impressed, further strengthening the top of that draft, which is far and away better than this year’s draft.

1. Diamondbacks – Dansby Swanson, SS, Vanderbilt
I wrote about this more in depth yesterday, where I wrote it’s down to CF Garrett Whitley, C Tyler Stephenson and CF Daz Cameron with some chance RHP Dillon Tate is still in the mix and SS Dansby Swanson possibly involved. After writing that, I heard that Arizona is definitely considering those prep players, but teams don’t think they’ll pull the trigger on a way-below-slot prep option and they are leaning college, with Tate and Swanson the targets and SS Alex Bregman also getting some consideration as a long shot.

I’ve heard Arizona wants a hitter here and GM Dave Stewart was in to see Vanderbilt last night. I had heard they were laying in the weeds on Swanson, so, for now, I’ll go with Swanson here. To be clear, Arizona hasn’t made any decisions yet, so this group could still grow or they could change course. One scouting director told me yesterday when asked what he thought Arizona would do that “it sounds like they are going to do something crazy.” Until a few hours before this published, I had Arizona taking Whitley, so this is still very much in flux. There’s also some thought that Tate or Swanson were the targets all along and the rumors of cut-rate high school options have just been a ploy to get the price down–you can pick your own theory at this point.

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There’s nothing real surprising about what just happened. Pitching coach Juan Nieves was fired by the Red Sox, the organization citing the under-performance by the starting rotation. Said rotation has been under the microscope since the team went through the offseason without acquiring a front-line ace, and the ERA at this point is terrible. When ERAs are terrible, and when they’re terrible in higher-pressure situations, heads roll, and they frequently belong to pitching coaches. Or, they frequently belonged to pitching coaches. Anyway.

The news has primarily drawn two responses, related to one another. One is that, well, someone had to pay for the early-season disaster. It’s called accountability. Two, Nieves is being scapegoated. It’s not his fault the Red Sox never got around to adding an ace. Ben Cherington is just getting the performance he deserved. Absolutely, it’s true that Nieves isn’t to blame for the lack of a higher-profile transaction. It’s not his fault Jon Lester’s in Chicago. But it wouldn’t be fair to put this on the front office, either. Blame gets spread around. Hell, maybe there’s no one to blame at all.

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After taking a pitch on the hand Friday night, the Red Sox placed Ryan Hanigan on the DL with a broken finger. Hand injuries are always tricky for hitters, and this one appears to be rather serious, as it will require surgery. According to Red Sox skipper John Farrell, Hanigan’s recovery time will be “lengthy,” and he won’t return to action until after the All-Star break. The Red Sox will be without their starting catcher for a while.

Hanigan’s injury leaves the Red Sox thin at catcher. Really thin. Hanigan wasn’t even actually supposed to be Boston’s primary catcher — That distinction was slated to go to Christian Vazquez. However, Vazquez’s season came to an end before just before it started when he suffered an elbow tear in spring training.

To help fill the void behind the plate, the Red Sox called up top prospect Blake Swihart, who placed 9th on our pre-season top 200 list, higher than any other catching prospect. At the time of the call up, the switch-hitting catcher was hitting an empty but solid .338/.392/.382 in Triple-A Pawtucket. Still, despite his solid start, most felt he needed a little more seasoning before he was ready for the show. But the Sox had a gaping hole at catcher, and Swihart was next in line, so here we are. Read the rest of this entry »