Archive for Teams

Everyone knows projections are not guarantees. Anything is possible. But even those alternate possibilities can be surprising in themselves. For example, some people, prior to the season, picked the Royals as dark horse contenders. However, how many of them said Kansas City would be on top of American League Central by midseason despite Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, and Billy Butler all being almost completely worthless at the plate?

Along the same lines, it was not inconceivable for Cleveland to have a pretty good offense in 2014. In 2013, Cleveland hit pretty well. But again, who would have thought that the 2014 team would have one of the better offenses in the American League about halfway through the season despite Jason Kipnis missing time with injury and (to date) not playing well, Carlos Santana hitting .193, and Nick Swisher sporting a 76 wRC+? Kansas City’s ascension and Detroit’s struggles are rightfully getting the attention, but Cleveland is hanging in there. Much of the credit has to go to two players having shockingly monstrous seasons at the plate: Lonnie Chisenhall and Michael Brantley.

Read the rest of this entry »

Looking back on it, I think I took LeBron James for granted during his time in Cleveland.

When a player reaches a certain level of greatness, this can be a natural human response. You can only hear or read about one excelling at such a high level for so long before it starts to seem like old news. I wish I had gone to more Cavaliers games before James did a thing on TV that made me stop acknowledging his existence in the NBA, or really the existence of the NBA in general. He is, obviously, an incredibly special athlete who played right in my backyard, and I took him for granted.

You might be tired of hearing or reading about Mike Trout, but you really shouldn’t be. Don’t take this one for granted. Mike Trout is, obviously, an incredibly special athlete and, really, enough can’t be said about him.

Read the rest of this entry »

You think about a playoff-contending team that really needs help at shortstop, and your mind immediately goes to the Detroit Tigers. Jose Iglesias‘ shin injury took him out of the mix before the season even started, and since Detroit never did go and get Stephen Drew before he returned to Boston, they’ve attempted to get by with a collection of odds and ends. They tried the ancient Alex Gonzalez, who quickly proved he was past his sell-by date. He gave way to Andrew Romine, acquired from the Angels during camp, with a touch of Danny Worth now and then. Romine’s wRC+ of 49 is the highest of that trio, so earlier this month they DFA‘d Worth and went with Eugenio Suarez, who has impressed in limited time and should hopefully prevent them from any further thoughts of asking first base coach Omar Vizquel to come out of retirement.

Maybe Suarez works out. Maybe he doesn’t, and the Tigers end up going out and getting Jimmy Rollins or Everth Cabrera or Ben Zobrist or Didi Gregorius or whatever shortstops become available. Either way, when the trade deadline gets a little closer and you start thinking about team needs, you’re likely going to think about the Tigers and their shortstops.

What you’re probably not going to think about are the Milwaukee Brewers, because they have a 24-year-old shortstop who made the All-Star team last year. They have playoff hopes, and they have Jean Segura. What they also have is a considerable issue.

Read the rest of this entry »

To whatever extent that Max Scherzer cares about these things, the good news is that Tigers fans are already preoccupied with worry over Justin Verlander, who was dismantled again on Monday. So Scherzer’s struggles can stay a little more hidden. But the bad news is that, with the Tigers stuck in such a slump, people will be inclined to worry more in general, and so there’s anxiety beyond just Verlander anxiety. There’s anxiety wherever anxiety’s possible, because the Tigers keep losing and the Royals keep winning. The Royals, right now — right now — right now — actually own sole possession of first place in the AL Central. The math keeps saying it won’t keep up, but math has never tucked someone in and read a nice bedtime story. Math doesn’t go to the store to get medicine and a Gatorade when you’re sick.

Tuesday night, the Royals were playing for first place, and they’d have to go through either Scherzer or the Tigers bullpen. They opted for the hard way and made it look like the easy way, sticking Scherzer with a full ten runs. When the second inning began, the teams were deadlocked at zero. About 30 minutes and 30 seconds later, Scherzer looked to the skies and left the mound, with the Royals suddenly up by a touchdown. Though the Tigers immediately countered with a safety, the margin would never get closer than that. A possible pitchers’ duel turned into a one-sided ambush, and in the process, the Royals forced Scherzer to set some new marks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Each weekday during the minor-league season, FanGraphs is providing a status update on multiple rookie-eligible players. Note that Age denotes the relevant prospect’s baseball age (i.e. as of July 1st of the current year); Top-15, the prospect’s place on Marc Hulet’s preseason organizational list; and Top-100, that same prospect’s rank on Hulet’s overall top-100 list.

In this installment, I examine three interesting groundball prospects who most have probably never heard of.

Summary
Newell’s exceptional plane and solid slider have allowed him to carve up Low-A hitters.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yasiel Puig, it should go without saying, is one of the most fascinating players in baseball. He was incredible in his debut last year, and somehow has been better this year, to a near-historic extent, as he’s notably improved his plate discipline and become one of the best overall hitters in the game. He’s almost certainly going to start in the All-Star Game, and, along with Andrew McCutchen, Troy Tulowitzki, Carlos Gomez and Giancarlo Stanton, he’s going to get some National League MVP consideration.

Really, it’s not hard to see why. If you think about a “five-tool player,” Puig seems to fit that description pretty well. Does he have the hit tool? Of course. Power? Obviously. Throwing arm? Even more obviously. Defense? Well, the defensive metrics don’t love him, but he can do this, which also took a fair amount of the fifth tool, speed. There’s seemingly nothing Puig can’t do on a baseball field; there’s seemingly several things he can do that no one else can.

Except… there’s one thing that Puig is still really, really bad at: For all his speed, he absolutely cannot steal bases, to the point that he really should give up trying to completely. For now, at least. Read the rest of this entry »

Last night, Mike Minor made a mistake that Mike Trout crushed. It looked like this.

That was an 84 mile-per-hour slider that broke down and in and ended up on the inner half of the plate, towards the bottom of the strike zone. Here’s where the PITCHF/x cameras said that pitch was located.

Inner half of the plate, but elevated enough to be right in the middle of Trout’s wheelhouse. He didn’t miss it, and it ended up in the seats. On the one hand, Trout’s really good, and he’s going to hit home runs. On the other hand, maybe it’s time for pitchers to stop throwing Mike Trout so many down-and-in breaking balls?

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s rare that a player becomes synonymous with his team. Tony Gwynn was one such player. He is literally known as Mr. Padre. The address of Petco Park is 19 Tony Gwynn Drive. When John Moores owned the team, he even paid for a new stadium at Gwynn’s alma mater, and it was named Tony Gwynn Stadium. Today however, we lose the opportunity to speak of Gwynn in the present tense, as he has unfortunately passed away at the age of 54.

The records that Gwynn holds in Padres history are essentially all of them. He holds the top nine single-season batting averages in team history. Cumulatively, his .338 career average is 24 points higher than the next man on that list, Mark Loretta. That is made all the more remarkable when you consider how long Gwynn wore the San Diego uniform — he played nearly twice as many games as the next player on the list, Garry Templeton. And he did rack up more than double the at-bats and plate appearances than did Templeton. Gwynn retired with an even 65.0 WAR. No other Padres player has even 30. Among active players, Chase Headley is the leader, but at 19.6 WAR and very close to free agency, he’s not going to sniff Gwynn any time soon. In fact, it’s probably not hyperbole to say that the player most equipped to surpass Gwynn isn’t on the Padres right now.

Read the rest of this entry »

Oscar Taveras is like a sad birthday gift.

He’s the big one. The first gift you asked your parents for, like, seven months before your birthday. You knew it was coming. You were even pretty sure it was that giant box in the back of your parents closet that you stumbled upon while you totally weren’t snooping around for presents. But you couldn’t open it yet. No, no. It just toiled there, right in front of your eyes. Big and beautiful. But you couldn’t play with it. No, you had to wait, damnit.

Then, finally, your birthday came.
Read the rest of this entry »

Certain guys, people just assume are going to get injured. For as little as we actually understand about pitching mechanics and injury risk, there are certain players who look like ticking time bombs. Chris Sale is considered one of those guys, and this is why:

Basically that simple. Sale is (1) a pitcher who (2) looks like that when he’s pitching. And Sale, sure enough, has had his injury scares. Earlier this very season, he was on the disabled list. But, a few years ago, Sale threw 192 innings. Last year he reached 214, and he still hasn’t had the disaster scenario. Sale’s kept himself healthy enough, and he’s recently made a change to try to keep it that way.

Thursday, Sale pitched against the Tigers, picking up a loss despite a winning effort. Three times, Sale had to go through Miguel Cabrera. Previously, when Sale and Cabrera matched up, Sale threw sliders a quarter of the time. But in the first inning, he threw Cabrera six fastballs and a changeup. In the fourth, he threw four fastballs and two changeups. In the sixth, he threw five fastballs. So, out of 18 pitches to maybe the best hitter in baseball, Sale didn’t throw a single slider, as he had often in the past. And to go beyond Cabrera, Sale struck out the side in the third on 13 pitches, and all three strikeouts came on changeups. It’s not a coincidence.

Read the rest of this entry »