Archive for Teams

This would’ve been better-timed yesterday, before the Astros lost a game to the Rangers, thereby having their winning streak snapped. Good teams don’t want to make a habit of losing games to the Rangers. But the timing doesn’t matter, because the message still stands: even with the loss, the Astros currently have the best record in the American League. More than that, the Astros have put a full seven games between themselves and the next-closest team in their division. The other AL division leads: two games, and half of a game. As a reminder, the team we’re talking about right now is the Houston Astros.

You know how this works. All these posts nowadays have to contain this information. On Opening Day, we gave the Astros a 14% chance at the playoffs, with a 5% chance at the division. Now they’re at 51% and 36%, respectively. They’re the favorites to win the AL West, even though we have them projected to play the rest of the way slightly below .500. It’s the whole thing about every game mattering. The Astros’ advantage is in the books, and the season is about a sixth complete. Let’s say, before the year, you figured the Astros would be 10 games worse than their direct competition. Let’s say you still believe that! Over the remainder, with the season shortened, you’d put the difference a hair over eight games. And, as I write this, the Astros’ lead is seven games. It’s very simple math. Because of their start, and because of the starts of their various rivals, the 2015 Houston Astros are for real.

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You’ll hear it every time he steps to the plate in Oakland, a slow, building chant. If Stephen Vogt lets the at-bat go long enough, or the moment is big enough, it can be deafening: “I believe in Stephen Vogt. I believe in Stephen Vogt.”

Craig Edwards pointed out that only two catchers broke out as late as the 30-year-old Vogt and sustained any sort of high level of production, so the odds are stacked against him. That sort of thing makes Vogt right at home with the Athletics, but there are plenty of reasons to believe in him, too. The awkward way he made his way to the big leagues probably kept him from showing his true self until this late in the game. It might not have really been his fault that he didn’t advance quicker.

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Over the weekend, the Red Sox promoted Blake Swihart, who was our highest-rated catching prospect heading into the year. The Padres followed suit two days later by promoting another highly-touted minor league catcher in Austin Hedges, who ranked 130th overall on Kiley McDaniel’s pre-season list, but was rated much higher by most other outlets. All indications are that Hedges serve as the Padres backup catcher behind Derek Norris, who seems unlikely to be benched after his excellent .323/.343/.500 start to the year. Hedges made his big league debut on Monday by striking out as a pinch hitter in the 9th.

Although they’re both well-regarded catching prospects, Hedges is a much different player than Swihart. Swihart is a plus defender with an interesting, but still-developing bat. Hedges, on the other hand, is widely considered to be one of the best defensive catchers on the planet, who offers very little in terms of offense. Through the end of the 2014 season, Hedges owned a .251/.311/.378 batting line in the minors, which earned him a 91 wRC+. This was bookended by a wimpy .225/.268/.321 (67 wRC+) showing in Double-A last year.

Despite these struggles, the Padres opted to challenge Hedges by having him open the 2015 season in Triple-A. He adapted surprisingly well. In 21 games in the PCL, he hit a loud .324/.392/.521. Obviously, this a tiny sample, but the signals emerging from this tiny sample were good. Hedges walked exactly as often as he struck out, and also hit for power in his month against Triple-A pitching. He came nowhere close to doing either of those things in Double-A last year. Read the rest of this entry »

Two weeks into the season, a narrative developed around Matt Carpenter and his aggressive behavior at the plate. In 2013, Carpenter had a breakout season, hitting 55 doubles on his way to a seven-win season. After a solid — but not quite as good — 2014 that was marked by incredible patience and a high walk rate, Carpenter flipped the script in the playoffs. He got more aggressive early in the count and took advantage of his scouting report against Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers. That aggressive approach  carried over into 2015 with Carpenter seeing about half a pitch less per plate appearance through the first two weeks of the season. Buster Olney mentioned it on Sunday Night Baseball, and I bought in.

Two weeks later, the initial data supporting that narrative has already eroded. Carpenter is now seeing just about the same amount of pitches he has throughout his career. However, that does not mean the aggressive Carpenter narrative is dead, nor does it deserve to be. In some ways, Carpenter has reverted back to 2013 Carpenter — the patient, but slightly more swing-happy player that was missing last season. On pitches in the strike zone, Carpenter has done more than just go back to 2013 levels. He is swinging at pitches in the strike zone more often than any time since he was a role player on the Cardinals 2012 team.

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The Brewers season is over. Already a mediocre team that needed to catch a lot of breaks in order to contend, Milwaukee has gotten off to an 8-18 start, watched two of their best players end up on the disabled list, and on Sunday night, they fired their manager. They currently stand 11.5 games behind the Cardinals in the NL Central race, and the season is only a month old. By the time the trade deadline rolls around, they may be 20 games out, and even the lowered bar of the second Wild Card can’t save the Brewers 2015 season. Which is why they’ve already told other teams that they’ll likely be an early seller, and are just waiting for buyers to decide it’s time to upgrade in order to start moving veterans for things that can offer more help in the future.

However, according to Buster Olney, the Brewers are hanging a not-for-sale sign on their best player.

The Brewers have made clear to other teams assessing possible trade options: They are not willing to deal catcher Jonathan Lucroy.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) May 5, 2015

This shouldn’t come as any big surprise, as even rebuilding teams have rarely moved their franchise players lately. Whether it was Felix Hernandez, Troy Tulowitzki, or Giancarlo Stanton, we just haven’t seen non-contending teams be willing to put legitimate frontline players on the market, preferring instead to build around their best players rather than use them as chips to try and stockpile a larger quantity of talent. It’s one thing to trade role players and guys on expiring contracts, but no one seems particularly interested in getting rid of the kind of player that is very hard to get back.

But I think there’s a strong case to be made that the Brewers should go against the grain here. Jonathan Lucroy is a great player, but I think the Brewers are probably better off trading him than they are keeping him.

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Let’s watch a little MLB Gameday, you and I. I’ll select Saturday’s matchup between the Rays and the Orioles. Below, you’re going to see all four of Manny Machado’s plate appearances. Note that I could’ve selected Sunday’s game instead and demonstrated the same thing, but on Saturday, Machado faced more pitches. Four simple .gifs:

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It takes a lot of muscle to square up a big fastball. In the case of George Springer, it might also take some relaxation.

Heading into the series that had the Astros in town, I asked hitting consultant and FanGraphs author Dan Farnsworth about a few of the Astros hitters as part of my research process. About Springer, Farnsworth said “I like his swing a lot, perhaps except for the excessive effort he has sometimes.” I didn’t get to talk to Springer, but I did talk to his hitting coach Dave Hudgens, and that word came up again.

Apparently, though, excessive effort is not a problem in batting practice. Take a look at the swings he took that day in batting practice, and they do look free and easy.

In game, it’s tough to get the same side view. But here in this package of highlights about Springer’s five-RBI night against the Padres, you might see some more effort.

And then there’s the problem that most videos are highlight videos, when the player is acting optimally. But here’s a side-view of a Springer at-bat in minor league camp, and in a swing before the home run, you can see what might be called effort issues. (And another, here, from the majors, with some slow mo.)

Of course, we’re talking bout batting practice, which is a two-fold problem.

For one, hitters are often working on parts of their swing that aren’t their best features. Farnsworth pointed out that Ian Kinsler’s batting practices are full of squibbers to first base, and then come game time, Kinsler is hitting frozen ropes to left field, his pull field. Despite the fact that scouts take a lot of knowledge away from batting practice, you wouldn’t want to assume Kinsler was a light-hitting opposite-field guy after watching him in BP.

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It’s not just a spring-training blip anymore. For one or two games, you can dismiss a pitcher working with reduced velocity. Sometimes mechanics can be slightly off. Sometimes a pitcher can just be under the weather. Jered Weaver’s gone beyond that. His velocity was way down in spring training, and it’s carried over into each of his regular-season starts. Weaver is down a full three ticks, and that’s a dramatic decline between years. Unsurprisingly, he’s been bad — he’s struck out just one of every 10 hitters. One season ago, his rate was twice as high.

Between years, for starting pitchers, the biggest fastball velocity drop belongs to Derek Holland, and he’s on the disabled list. The second-biggest drop belongs to Henderson Alvarez, and he’s on the disabled list. The fourth-biggest drop belongs to Homer Bailey, and he’s on the disabled list. Weaver owns the third-biggest drop, and he says he feels fine. Which means there’s either something wrong that doesn’t hurt, or this is just what he is. This isn’t what he wants to be.

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If there was one overarching theme of this last offseason, it was the surprise push towards contention from a lot of teams that didn’t quite look quite ready to win. The Padres were the most aggressive unexpected buyer, eschewing rebuilding to instead load up for a run in 2015, but they weren’t the only team to decide to capitalize on the current unprecedented level of parity in the sport. Over in the AL, the White Sox made a similar series of moves, bringing in Jeff Samardzija, Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche, David Robertson, and Zach Duke in their offseason makeover. With Chris Sale and Jose Abreu at the top of their games, Rick Hahn decided to push in on 2015 and see if they could follow in the Royals footsteps.

The pre-season forecasts, though, never really bought into it. On Opening Day, our Playoff Odds page had the White Sox going 78-84, with just an 8% chance of winning the AL Central and a 6% chance of winning one of the two Wild Card spots; the Rangers and Twins were the only AL teams with a lower chance of reaching the postseason. There was a scenario where things broke right and the White Sox became legitimate contenders — the Astros are currently in the midst of that scenario at the moment — but it was going to require the team’s role players step up and fill some of the areas where the team was expected to get replacement level production.

That hasn’t happened.

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Milwaukee Brewers fans haven’t had much to get excited about this year. Their team’s 5-17 record is easily the worst in baseball, and with a BaseRuns differential of -45, it appears as though they’ve been about as bad as their record suggests. It’s unlikely the Brewers will continue to play this poorly, but it’s probably safe to say the they won’t be anywhere near the playoff race this fall. Our playoff odds calculator gives them a minuscule 1% of even making it into the Wild Card game.

The current iteration of the Brewers is pretty depressing — Adam Lind is literally their only player who’s hitting better than league-average. But despite their current struggles, Milwaukee has a few intriguing minor leaguers on the horizon, who represent beams of light for Brewers fans. One of those players is shortstop prospect Orlando Arcia. Kiley McDaniel deemed Arcia the Brewers best prospect over the winter, and the 20-year-old has lived up to that billing with a hot start to 2015.

Through 78 trips to the plate in Double-A Biloxi, Arcia’s hitting .409/.468/.545. This is obviously a very small sample of games, but still, a .409 batting average is pretty eye-popping. Arcia’s year-to-date numbers are almost certainly good enough to make us re-evaluate what we thought of him a month ago. Read the rest of this entry »