One of baseball’s delightful postseason traditions is the introduction of new characters to the national consciousness. During the regular season, the focus is spread out over as many as 15 mostly meaningless games a night. When the calendar turns to October, there is one game going on at a time, maybe two, and each pitch is of colossal importance. Following regular-season baseball is fishing with a net; following postseason baseball is fishing with a sniper rifle.

So every October, we meet players previously unknown or little-considered. We put faces to names and visual recognition to stat lines. And like clockwork, some rookie middle reliever from a non-glamor franchise (usually but not always the Rays) will come out in the eighth inning of a game against the Astros or Dodgers and cut through three straight All-Stars like a hot wire through Styrofoam.

If you care about spoiling key postseason narratives, you should stop reading. If not, you’ll want to learn about Abner Uribe. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rangers have been sputtering, losing 15 of their last 19 since August 15 to turn a 3.5-game AL West lead into a three-game deficit, with the Astros, who just swept a three-game series from them at Globe Life Field, and Mariners both above them. Yet even as the team’s offense has dried up, Corey Seager has been on a tear. Since returning from a sprained right thumb at the beginning of August, the Rangers shortstop has homered 13 times in 30 games; this past week, he finally accumulated enough plate appearances to take over the AL leads in both batting average and wRC+. If not for Shohei Ohtani, Seager would have a pretty decent case for an MVP award, even with his absences.

Seager only missed nine games due to his thumb sprain, which he suffered on July 21 sliding into second base in a game against the Dodgers. That was his second trip to the injured list this year, as he also missed 31 games from April 12–May 17 due to a left hamstring strain. Yet the interruptions haven’t hindered him at all. Read the rest of this entry »

As somebody who grew up playing baseball and continued to play through college, I’m familiar with all the old school adages that this game has. As I tried to develop my own abilities, I needed to figure out which were true, which were false, and which had some grey area. Swing down, for example, is not necessarily what hitters do in practice, and I had to relearn that. Then there is the “squish the bug” cue for your back foot. That actually makes most hitters get too spinny and reinforces an incorrect interaction with the ground. These are just a few hitting examples. But for this piece, I’m going to focus on stealing bases.

When an aggressive base stealer is on first, they command a level of mental real estate in a pitcher’s mind, though it’s important to note not every pitcher is the same. Some are more equipped to handle a runner than others. That could be due to a good pickoff move, quick time to the plate, or simply because a guy remains unfazed no matter the situation. This is all common knowledge. What isn’t, and what I’ve been pondering as one of the grey area tropes, is whether pitchers change their pitch mix when there is a threat to run. In general, I always thought this was true, but I never went back and looked at any data to confirm it. But we live in a baseball world with solid data accessibility, and luckily, this question can be answered thanks to Baseball Savant. Read the rest of this entry »

On June 3, Aaron Judge made a spectacular running catch that ended in a clash with the right field wall at Dodger Stadium. The play safeguarded what was ultimately a 6–3 victory that brought the Yankees’ record to 35–25 and their playoff odds to 80.1%, but both sides of the collision — wall and player — suffered tremendous damage in the process:

The fence wasn’t supposed to open in that direction, but Judge’s right foot wasn’t supposed to bend that way either; no amount of Spike Lee celebrations could change that.

The resulting injury to the towering right fielder’s big toe kept him out until July 28, and when he returned, expectations had diminished for both him and his team. The Yankees had gone just 19–23 in their captain’s absence, dropping their playoff odds to 32%. And there was no guarantee that the diminished version of Judge, who just three weeks earlier disclosed that the toe might never feel the same, would prop the Bombers back up. Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Miller was pitching in High-A when I first interviewed him for FanGraphs in June 2021. Drafted 29th overall the previous summer by the Los Angeles Dodgers out of the University of Louisville, the right-hander possessed both a high-octane heater and a lofty ceiling. Since making his MLB debut this past May, he’s met those expectations, going 9–3 with a 3.80 ERA and a 3.67 FIP over 17 starts. The 24-year-old is also coming off of his most impressive outing. Facing the powerhouse Atlanta Braves on September 3, he allowed just three hits and one run in a career-high seven innings.

Miller discussed his continuing evolution as a pitcher and his efforts to find consistency with his slider when the Dodgers visited Fenway Park in late August.

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David Laurila: We talked two years ago when you were pitching for the Great Lakes Loons. What has changed and what has stayed the same since that time?

Bobby Miller: “A lot of stuff is the same. At the end of the day, it’s still the same game. But the competition is obviously a lot higher. The hitters are lot more disciplined and experienced. Most of them have seen the game’s best arms, so when you’re out there, you’ve got to know that they’ve faced guys just as good or better than you are.

“Game-planning comes in a lot more at this level. I feel like game-planning is super important to learn in the minor leagues, studying hitters and all that, and I wish I’d have learned more before I came up here. While I had somewhat of an idea, I still have a lot of room to improve on that. I think that’s the biggest thing for me: how much time I spend looking at the upcoming lineups I’m going to face.”

Laurila: Basically, what hitters’ hot and cold zones are, and what they hit and don’t hit in certain counts.

Miller: “Yeah. What to avoid in certain counts. When they’re aggressive and when they’re not aggressive. How aggressive they are with runners in scoring position. At some point, I could get better at learning the baserunners, too. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is getting the batter out of the box. It’s about getting outs for your team.” Read the rest of this entry »

When the Phillies signed Trea Turner to an 11-year, $300 million contract over the winter, the second-largest contract in franchise history, they were probably prepared for Year 11 to be a bit underwhelming, not so much Year One. Turner got off to an excellent start in Philadelphia, beginning the season with 12 hits in the first seven games with two triples. Once his seven-game hitting streak was snapped, the next four months turned into an unbelievable slog: .225/.282/.354 with 10 homers. On the morning of August 5, his OPS hit a season-low .656. But over the last month, Turner has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball.

During the hottest months of the summer, one of the most common questions I got was some variant of “is Trea Turner broken?” My usual answer was that he’d probably be fine, even if expectations had to be lowered a bit, but it felt a little less convincing. The zStats I ran for hitters in early August as part of the “full-fat” ZiPS saw Turner as having a better season than was reflected in his overall numbers, with a .728 zOPS compared to that .656 mark. That wasn’t enough to make the leaderboard, headed by Spencer Torkelson (with a .975 OPS since then), but it was still a significant gap. And I doubt the Phillies or the fans would have felt much relief even with the .264/.309/.419 line that zStats gave him.

Back then, I re-ran Turner’s long-term projections to see what kind of bounceback ZiPS was expecting. While the computer saw a pretty good recovery in 2024, it was well off his preseason numbers. There was also a lot more risk in the mix, significantly pushing his numbers in future years down. Read the rest of this entry »

We haven’t seen much of Royce Lewis at the major league level yet, thanks in large part to a twice-torn anterior cruciate ligament. But what we have seen of the first pick of the 2017 draft has been impressive and, lately, otherworldly. On Monday against the Guardians, the Twins’ third baseman clubbed his third grand slam in an eight-game span, part of a longer hot streak that includes seven homers in his past 14 games.

Lewis’ latest slam came at the expense of Lucas Giolito, who was making his debut for the Guardians after being claimed off waivers from the Angels on September 1. Already down 2–0 in the second inning, Giolito was one strike away from a 1-2-3 inning when he lost the plot, issuing three walks, throwing a wild pitch, and allowing a single. That left the bases loaded for Lewis, who had already singled in the first inning. Giolito fell behind 2–0, then left Lewis a 92-mph belt-high fastball on the inner third of the plate. He hit a towering shot to left field; its 107.6-mph exit velocity was garden variety, but that 41-degree launch angle was majestic:

The slam broke the game open. Lewis would later add a two-run single off David Fry — the Guardians’ utilityman threw four innings of thankless relief — in what turned out to be a 20–6 romp. Those six RBIs gave Lewis 10 in a two-game span, as he went 3-for-5 with a three-run homer (off Jon Gray) and four runs driven in in the Twins’ 6–5 loss to the Rangers on Sunday. Only one player, the Orioles’ Ryan Mountcastle, has collected more RBIs in a two-game span this season (11 on April 10–11).

Lewis’ previous grand slams came at the expense of the Rangers’ Chris Stratton on August 27 and the Guardians’ Xzavion Curry on August 28:

The trio of salamis ties Lewis for this year’s lead alongside the Dodgers’ Max Muncy, the Astros’ Alex Bregman, and the Rangers’ Adolis García. Via the Elias Bureau and MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, he’s the first rookie with three grand slams in a span of eight games or fewer, and just the fourth player to bunch three such hits so closely, joining the Yankees’ Lou Gehrig (five games in 1931), the Tigers’ Jim Northrup (four games in 1968), and the Rangers’ Larry Parrish (eight games in 1982).

Including homers on August 23 (off the Brewers’ Corbin Burnes), August 24 (also off Stratton), and August 29 (off the Guardians’ Hunter Gaddis), Lewis is hitting .321/.400/.736 with seven homers and 22 RBI in 60 plate appearances over his last 14 games, all against the Brewers, Guardians, and Rangers. It’s a remarkable surge even from a player who has wielded a potent bat when available… but has unfortunately been rather scarce in recent years.

Recall that after reaching Double-A in 2019 and spending the following season at the Twins’ alternate training site, Lewis first tore his right ACL in February ’21 and missed the entire season. He was ready to go for the start of 2022 and bounced up and down between Triple-A St. Paul and the majors for the season’s first two months, making his major league debut on May 6 but playing just 11 games before returning to Triple-A. After another 10 games down on the farm, he returned to the majors on May 29, but three innings into what was his first major league appearance in center field, he re-tore his ACL — partially this time, not fully as in the first time — making a leaping catch at the wall and missed the rest of the season. For his time with the Twins, he hit a tantalizing .300/.317/.550 in 41 PA.

Lewis made his 2023 debut with Double-A Wichita on May 11 and, after two games, returned to St. Paul. After homering four times in eight games, he was back in Minnesota. Exactly one year after his last ACL tear, and one week before his 24th birthday, he homered off the Astros’ J.P. France in his second plate appearance, then added a game-tying single in the ninth. He played regularly at third base throughout June but strained an oblique on July 1, which sidelined him until August 15. He was hitting well before the injury, and he’s hit even better since coming back:

As you can see from those improved strikeout and walk rates, Lewis has taken a more disciplined approach since returning. He’s lowered his chase rate from 38.6% to 32.2% and his swing rate from 50.8% to 46.2%; meanwhile, his swinging-strike rate has dropped from 13.3% to 9.7%. He’s done a much better job upon reaching two strikes than before, improving from .220/.264/.280 (51 wRC+) with a 52.8% strikeout rate to .231/.333/.333 (91 wRC+) with a 33.3% strikeout rate. In late June, he spoke of adjusting his two-strike approach to a more aggressive, contact-oriented one. Via The Athletic’s Dan Hayes:

“It’s who I am,” Lewis said. “It’s just me being able to put the bat on the ball and make contact and make people do things. You’ve just got to play the game and when you strike out, no one is doing anything except for the pitcher. Honestly, I get frustrated after a while and I just go back to being like — what I said to (hitting coach David Popkins) is, ‘I’m going to turn into (Luis) Arraez today, just touch the ball. There’s a lot of grass out there.’”

…“It’s a mindset,” Lewis said. “Not waiting for a pitch you can drive because these guys are going to execute. If they dot one up on the outer third, that’s 0-1. Then they do it again, 0-2. ‘OK, great, now you’re 0-2.’ Now you’re battling and you’re looking for a pitch to drive at the same time, that doesn’t work. I looked at where some of our plans were going and how the pitchers were pitching us and they weren’t attacking us with our plan of getting a mistake. I was like, ‘Why don’t I just start being aggressive, putting the ball in play? I know I can at least touch it and go to right field.’”

Since returning, Lewis is hitting the ball in the air far more often, and harder in general:

Note that Lewis is also pulling the ball more frequently and, as that last column illustrates, has more than doubled the frequency with which he hits fly balls in the air. Five of his 11 homers have come via pulled flies, one before the injury and four since returning.

For all of that, it’s worth noting that Lewis is riding a .368 BABIP, which is higher than any batting title qualifier save for Freddie Freeman (.375). That said, 15 other players with between 150–425 PA (around enough to qualify) have higher marks, including three of Lewis’ teammates and another former number one pick whom I checked in on about six weeks ago:

When I wrote about Moniak, who’s in the midst of a breakout year with the Angels (despite a 2.8% walk rate and 34.8% strikeout rate), he had a .427 BABIP through 165 PA. Since then, through his next 151 PA, he’s produced a .365 BABIP — still incredibly high, just a bit behind Lewis, yet 72 points lower than that first stretch. That said, Julien, Solano, and Jeffers all have higher BABIPs than Lewis in at least 96 more PA, with Solano having more than twice as many PA.

It’s rare but not unheard of for so many teammates to sustain such numbers. Four other expansion-era teams have had four players with at least a .360 BABIP in 150 PA; in fact, the Twins entry in that group sustained those BABIPs through at least 350 PA for all four:

Moving beyond BABIP, Lewis is actually further ahead of his Statcast expected numbers than just about any player at the 150 PA cutoff:

Lewis has the highest wOBA-xwOBA differential by a seven-point margin, the third-largest differential in batting average, and the fourth-largest in slugging percentage. Note that the top six players in that table are all short of qualifying for the batting title; those gaps tend to shrink as the sample sizes increase.

While it’s tempting to chalk up some of the differentials to Lewis’ 76th-percentile speed, his eight hits on grounders and line drives that have stayed in the infield don’t move the needle that much, and none of his five doubles are the result of hustling to stretch singles. On the contrary, a 398-footer that he hit off the Rangers’ Andrew Heaney at Target Field on August 24 would have been a home run in 24 of the other 29 ballparks.

Even if his production is a bit beyond the bounds of sustainability, Lewis’ return has helped to shore up the Twins’ third base situation. The team made the Replacement Level Killers list ahead of the trade deadline, with Jose Miranda, Kyle Farmer, Willi Castro, and Solano combining with Lewis’ first stint to hit a meek .247/.317/.353 for a 90 wRC+ and 0.5 WAR. With Lewis making 14 of the team’s last 18 starts at third (plus four more at DH) and Jorge Polanco, Castro, and Farmer seeing time in the period between that article’s publication and Lewis’ return, the group is up to .260/.333/.388 (101 wRC+) with 1.8 WAR. The Twins have widened their AL Central lead from three games to seven since that list ran and from 4.5 games to seven since Lewis’ return. He’s just been part of the parade, as the Twins as a team have hit .275/.362/.489 since August 15, good for a 134 wRC+ (fourth in the majors) and 6.42 runs per game (third).

On a team whose biggest stars, namely Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, have disappointed, Lewis has helped pick up the slack, and if what he’s done isn’t as sustainable as it is flashy, his in-season evolution is certainly encouraging. After three mostly lost seasons, the Twins can’t ask for much more than that.

In Tuesday’s missive on league-wide bunt tendencies, I ran out of time and space before I could single out some of this season’s standout individual bunters for special attention. As in every collection of ballplayers, there are a few outliers who skew the sample. To continue the metaphor that a bunt is baseball’s mid-range jump shot, these are your LaMarcus Aldridges. Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Witt Jr. is more than just the best player on a bad team; he’s potentially on his way to becoming a superstar. Playing in his second big league season, the Kansas City Royals shortstop has 28 home runs and 39 stolen bases to go with 5.0 WAR. Projected by Eric Longenhagen as “the face of this franchise’s resurgence” during last year’s rookie campaign, he debuted at age 21 and didn’t turn 23 until this past June. And he’s been one of baseball’s best hitters in the second half, posting a .399 wOBA and 152 wRC+ since the All-Star break.

Selected second overall in the 2019 draft behind Adley Rutschman, the Colleyville, Texas native approaches his craft with a keep-it-simple attitude, at the same time continuing to hone a swing that’s always come natural to him. It’s hard to argue with success.

Witt discussed his evolution as a hitter when the Royals visited Fenway Park in August.

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David Laurila: I’ve asked a number of guys whether hitting is more of an art or more of a science. How do you view it?

Bobby Witt Jr: “I think it’s more of an art, because of the swing. So many people have different types of swings. I feel like you form your swing at a young age, and you pretty much critique it off of that. That’s how I look at it.”

Laurila: There is obviously a lot of data in today’s game. I’m sure you’ve studied your swing.

Witt Jr: “Yes, but I’m not really big into the data. I’m more of a visual learner. I see things that I like to do, whether it’s watching guys on TV, or… like, growing up, I would try to emulate guys’ swings. That was kind of how I made my swing.”

Laurila: Whose swing did you try to emulate?

Witt Jr: “Pretty much whoever I was really liking at the time. I grew up a big Red Sox fan and was always kind of smaller growing up, so Dustin Pedroia was one. I had the narrow stance with the big leg kick. I also liked watching Prince Fielder a little bit and transitioned into a toe tap. So just watching guys and seeing what they’re doing on the field, seeing what their approach was. From a young age, I was trying to emulate that to myself.” Read the rest of this entry »

This year, trade deadline season kicked off when the Rangers acquired Aroldis Chapman from the Royals at the end of June. Texas desperately needed relief help, so it pulled an early trigger in getting Chapman a full month ahead of the deadline. In today’s game, teams moving rental relievers typically do not get anything too exciting in return. That seemed to be the case with Kansas City’s part of the deal: Cole Ragans and 17-year-old outfielder Roni Cabrera. Emphasis on seemed.

Ragans had pitched 24.1 innings in relief across 17 games with the Rangers after an extended but rough debut in 2022. Like last year, things hadn’t gone well. He walked 13.2% of the batters he faced, and hitters slugged .561 against his four-seamer. In that short span, he accumulated -5.2 run value on that pitch alone. Even with a nasty changeup and a four-tick velocity jump from ’22, he was still struggling to get the results he needed.

But after his move to Kansas City and a rough first outing, everything changed. Eno Sarris’ profile of Ragans from last week does a fantastic and thorough job at explaining his career turnaround, from his training at Tread Athletics in the offseason to create his velocity jump to consulting with them and Royals pitching coach Brian Sweeney after his first start in Triple-A Omaha to add his gyro slider. I strongly urge you read the piece, because mine is as a supporting actor to that story. Read the rest of this entry »