On last Monday’s episode of the Rates and Barrels podcast, Derek VanRiper raised a curious contradiction. “[Riley Greene is] first percentile in squared-up percentage, but 97th percentile in barrel rate, which — I’m sure there’s an explanation, I don’t know what it is just yet.” In response, Eno Sarris asked, “How can he barrel it without squaring it up?” It was a great question. In colloquial use, a squared-up ball is synonymous with a barreled ball. So what’s going on here, exactly?

The first thing to know: A squared-up ball is not necessarily a well-hit ball, as Davy Andrews highlighted when these stats were first made public last June. To understand why, one must first become acquainted with the Statcast definition of squared up. The MLB glossary entry for squared-up rate defines it thusly: “A swing’s squared-up rate tells us how much of the highest possible exit velocity available (based on the physics related to the swing speed and pitch speed) a batter was able to obtain – it is, at its simplest, how much exit velocity did you get as a share of how much exit velocity was possible based on your swing speed and the speed of the pitch.” If a hitter generates 80% of their possible exit velocity on a given swing and the ball is put in play, the batted ball is considered squared up.

We might quibble over the simplicity of that definition. In any case, as Davy showed, squared-up balls can be hit at super low speeds — if all it means is that a hitter channelled 80% of the potential exit velocity, then 80% of a half-swing is not very much exit velocity.

It’s also possible to do damage without making frequent flush contact; Greene shows us how. As Ben Clemens wrote just a couple of weeks ago, Greene is posting yet another excellent offensive campaign despite one of the higher strikeout rates among qualified hitters. He’s doing it unconventionally, swinging a ton in early counts to maximize damage. He’s also unconventional in another sense: He barrels the ball a ton while hardly ever squaring it up.

Part of the explanation for how this works is tied to the nature of swinging hard. When the bat speed statistics first dropped, it immediately became clear that there is a strong negative relationship between bat speed and the ability to square the ball up, at least by the Statcast definition. Click over to the bat tracking leaderboard, and the first thing you’ll see is this image, which shows the negative correlation between these two variables:

That’s no surprise. By the Statcast definition of a squared-up ball, slow swingers will always come out on top, because swinging slower allows for greater barrel accuracy. But it’s not all bad news for hard swingers. They also tend to produce the most valuable type of batted ball: a barrel.

Naturally, bat speed is correlated — positively — with barrel rate. A barrel, by the Statcast definition, is any type of batted ball where the expected batting average is at least .500 and the expected slugging percentage is at least 1.500. Barrels tend to be clustered in a pretty narrow exit velocity/launch angle range, somewhere north of 100 mph in terms of exit velocity and between 15 and 40 degrees or so of launch angle:

As the scatterplot below shows, the relationship between bat speed and barrel rate is extremely tight:

Greene’s average bat speed — 75.2 mph — is in the 91st percentile, so on some level, a high barrel rate and a low squared-up rate is to be expected. Even so, the spread between these two metrics is striking. His barrel rate is higher than his squared-up rate! Only one other hitter has a lower squared-up-minus-barrel rate — Aaron Judge. And that gives a hint into how, exactly, Greene is pulling this off.

Judge racks up an obscene number of barrels. Already, he’s mashed 60 this year, good for a 25.9% barrel rate. Like Greene, his squared-up rate is low — not as low, but comfortably a standard deviation below the mean. But also like Greene, Judge is amazing at converting his squared-up balls into barrels.

Nobody comes particularly close to Judge in this metric. Nearly 40% of his squared-up balls are converted into barrels, by far the highest rate in the league. (The league average is 13.6%.) As you might have guessed, Greene also excels here, ranking fifth among all hitters with at least 150 plate appearances:

So that’s the first part of this equation. Greene might not square the ball up that often, but when he does, it’s frequently crushed. The other part of the equation? Greene hits a ton of foul balls.

Greene’s 315 foul balls rank fifth among all hitters. When Greene makes contact with the ball, it goes foul 56% of the time. That mark ranks 11th out of all hitters with at least 150 plate appearances; besides Cal Raleigh, nobody else in Greene’s squared-up-to-barrel cohort fouls off nearly as many balls:

All of those foul balls — in addition to his seventh percentile whiff rate — contribute to the squared-up percentage denominator, sinking Greene’s squared-up rate to the very bottom of qualified hitters. Importantly, foul balls are not part of the barrel rate denominator. The barrel rate that shows up on the Savant player page popsicles is a measure of barrels per batted ball event. A bunch of foul balls do nothing to affect a hitter’s barrel rate, but they’ll go a long way toward tanking a squared-up rate.

It isn’t necessarily intuitive to think that a hitter could be so good at barreling the ball and so bad at squaring it up. But breaking it down in this fashion, I think it starts to clarify this ostensible conundrum. Barrels are hard to come by. Even Judge, the barrel GOAT, hits one just over a quarter of the time he puts a ball in play. To be a barrel king like Judge or Greene, you don’t need to crush that many baseballs, at least on an absolute basis. But you better make sure that when the ball is in play, it gets smushed.

More than anything, I think these two data points paint a compelling picture of the modern hitter. Greene, perhaps more than any other hitter, goes for broke, almost like the anti-Luis Arraez. His swing tilt is the steepest in the sport. He mishits a bunch of pitches. He whiffs a ton. But when he connects, he does damage. And even though those damage events are relatively infrequent, they’re valuable enough to make him one of the better hitters in baseball.

Last night, exactly one week before they’re slated to make the first overall pick in the 2025 draft, the Nationals fired president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo and manager Dave Martinez. After ESPN’s Jeff Passan broke the news, the team announced assistant general manager Mike DeBartolo will serve as interim GM. Bench coach Miguel Cairo was named interim manager this afternoon.

Rumors that Rizzo and Martinez might finally be on the hot seat had made the rounds over the past several weeks, but the timing is less than ideal. According to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, the last time a team fired its GM before the trade deadline was when the Twins got rid of Terry Ryan on July 18, 2016. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale provided an explanation, reporting that both Rizzo and Martinez had contract options for 2026, with mid-July deadlines for those decisions. Even for a franchise that just fired its POBO and manager, it’s a bad look to let money dictate the timing of the decision when so much is at stake. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s never a good time to lose a starting pitcher, but doing so when you’ve lost six of your last seven games and have relinquished first place in your division is an especially unwelcome happenstance. This is what the New York Yankees are currently experiencing, as Clarke Schmidt, who was placed on the injured list due to forearm tightness after an early exit from his Thursday start, will likely undergo Tommy John surgery. With a 3.32 ERA, 3.90 FIP, and 1.2 WAR in 14 starts, Schmidt appeared to be headed towards his best season in the majors, but short of a miracle, he’ll now be out until well into the 2026 season at least. Coming just as the offense appeared to be recovering from its June swoon, the Yankees’ trade deadline to-do list may have just gotten a bit longer.

Six weeks ago, the Yankees were in a strong, though not insurmountable, position at the top of the AL East. No fan should start making travel plans based on a seven-game divisional lead in late May, but it’s about as strong a position as a team can hope to have in a good division. In his May 28 start, Schmidt threw six shutout innings en route to a 1-0 victory over the Angels, giving the Yankees that a seven-game lead (their seasonal high-water mark) and a 35-20 overall record. Since then, the Yankees have gone 14-21, losing 11 games in the standings relative to the current first-place team, the Blue Jays.

The disappearance of the offense was a big part of the Yankees’ slump, at least until the last week or so. On the whole, the offense dropped to a .718 OPS in June after posting an .812 OPS through the end of May, a mark that was second only to the Dodgers. Half of the team’s plate appearances in June were made by players with a wRC+ under 90 for the month, including key early-season performers Paul Goldschmidt and Ben Rice, as well as a returning Giancarlo Stanton. The pitching remained solid despite the team’s 13-14 month, with the rotation combining for a 3.19 ERA and a slightly less exciting 3.79 FIP. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Washington Nationals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

Since 2021, Ke’Bryan Hayes is the leader in OAA among all infielders. As one of the best defenders in the sport, his floor is very high. Even with his career 87 wRC+, he has still been worth about 3 WAR per 162 games. If he could be a consistently average offensive player, he’d be one of the most valuable players at his position. This is a story we all know. With his name swirling in trade rumors, you have to imagine other teams are thinking about the possibility more so now than in the past. His issues stem from his suboptimal swing path, and if he’s traded, that will be what his new hitting coach tries to fix.

In the last calendar year (459 plate appearances), Hayes has a 60 wRC+. That is bad! But despite those struggles, it’s not like he is completely lacking offensive ability. His bat speed is only a little below average. His strikeout and whiff rates are better than league average over the past three seasons. He hits the ball hard more often than not, and he chases at about an average rate. Those are all things you could work with if you’re trying to manufacture a league average hitter. But if you’re doing all this and your path is rarely working in an ideal direction, you’ll always have limitations on what you do when you actually make contact. Read the rest of this entry »

A piece that ran here at FanGraphs just over a week ago elicited a good suggestion. Commenting on A Conversation With Max Scherzer on the Importance of Conviction, reader muenstertruck wrote the following:

“If you’re taking follow up questions, I’d like to hear how he differentiates intention and conviction from physical effort. How difficult is it to mentally commit to the pitch but only give it 90% so you keep some gas in the tank? Is it even possible to do so?”

Fortuitously, an opportunity to circle back with the future Hall of Famer came just a few days later when the Blue Jays visited Fenway Park for a weekend series. As expected — Scherzer likes talking ball — he was amenable to addressing said followup.

“Effort level and conviction are different,” Scherzer answered. “You can throw a pitch at 100% effort and still be mentally indecisive about it. You can also put out less than 100% effort and be mentally convicted in what you’re doing. Can things go hand-in-hand? Yes, but it’s not ‘more effort means more conviction.’ You can just be more mentally convicted.”

Scherzer had opined in our earlier conversation that you’re more likely to miss your spot when not fully convicted. What about throwing with full conviction at a 90% effort level? Does that make it easier to pinpoint your command? Read the rest of this entry »

It was ugly, it was labor-intensive, it was sobering — and probably humbling. Clayton Kershaw entered Wednesday night’s start in Los Angeles needing just three strikeouts to reach 3,000 for his career. Facing the White Sox, a team with the American League’s worst record (28-57) and the majors’ second-highest strikeout rate against lefties (26.6%), the 37-year-old southpaw repeatedly struggled to get from strike two to strike three, and only reached the milestone on his 100th and final pitch of the night. By the time he caught Vinny Capra looking at a slider on the outside edge of the plate, the Dodgers trailed 4-2, and Max Muncy had just departed with a serious knee injury while applying the tag on an attempted steal of third base. It took a textbook ninth-inning rally for the Dodgers to salvage a victory.

Here’s the big moment:

Read the rest of this entry »

Chase Burns doesn’t need much of an introduction. The 22-year-old right-hander was featured here at FanGraphs prior to his much-anticipated June 24 major league debut, and when our Cincinnati Reds Top Prospects list was published in early May, he came in at no. 1, this after checking in at no. 28 overall as a 55 FV prospect on the offseason Top 100. And then there was the debut itself. With the eyes of the baseball world upon him, the second overall pick in last year’s draft fanned the first five New York Yankees batters he faced. With a fastball reaching triple digits and a razor-sharp slider to augment it, Burns has quickly established himself as one of the game’s most promising young arms.

Those things said, the flame-throwing Wake Forest University product is still a work in progress. Burns threw just 66 minor league innings before receiving his call-up, and while his initial frames were scintillating, he soon learned how challenging it is to face big league hitters. Not only did the Yankees go on to tag him for three runs, he failed to get out of the first inning in his second start, that against the Red Sox at Fenway Park.

How does Burns approach his craft, and what has he learned coming through not only Wake Forest’s pitching program, but also Cincinnati’s, which is likewise highly regarded? One day after his rocky outing in Boston, I sat down with Burns to find out.

———

David Laurila: What do you know now that you didn’t know when you were coming out of high school?

Chase Burns: “It’s kind of a growing process, really. You’re learning as you go. There is a lot I’ve learned about, including analytics, going from high school to college — and even now — about how can I make my stuff better, about what plays in the game today.”

Laurila: Pitching analytics and optimizing your stuff is important, but more than that goes into succeeding at this level…

Burns: “Yes. I was fortunate to go to Wake Forest, where we had the pitching lab, but the pitching coach there, Corey Muscara, kind of talked about that. He talked about how you don’t want to dive too deep into the analytics, because at the end of the day, you’ve got to go out there and get outs. That’s the biggest thing.”

Laurila: Is there any one thing you learned about yourself as a pitcher at Wake Forest that you feel is especially important?

Burns: “I think I figured out that I was more of a north-to-south pitcher, as opposed to an east-to-west pitcher. I kind of throw the ball middle and let my stuff move how it’s intended, instead of trying to make this big sweep right to left. I think that helps me a lot.”

Laurila: That wasn’t until you got to Wake Forest?

Burns: “Yes. When I was at Tennessee [where Burns spent his first two collegiate seasons], I was trying to go in and out more, rather than up and down with all my stuff.”

Laurila: I assume you know your pitch metrics?

Burns: “I do. I’m a cut-ride guy, and I feel like my vertical is pretty good. I’ve been up to 20-21 inches [with the fastball], but it averages around 18. When I was at Tennessee, the vertical was pretty low, and I realized that I could get more, so that was something I went after. Now I don’t really worry about it too much; I kind of just play into the cut-ride profile. I think that’s kind of another weapon for me.

“Nowadays a lot of people are chasing vertical and spin rate — stuff like that — and I think it could be a good thing, but at the same time, it could be bad with the amount of injuries that we have today.”

Laurila: The slider is your best secondary pitch. Has that always been the case?

Burns: “Yeah. It’s a pitch I’ve always had feel for, even when I was younger. Over the years, it’s kind of just progressed naturally.”

Laurila: You also have a curveball and a changeup…

Burns: “The curveball is something I’ve had since college, but I didn’t really have times where I needed to use it as much. But at this level, you’re going to have to use it. It’s still developing, but it’s been a weapon for me.

“My changeup isn’t very conventional. It’s the kick-change that everybody’s been talking about. I’m a supinator, so it’s kind of hard for me to throw a changeup. I started kicking it, and have had some success doing that.”

Laurila: When did you start throwing the kick-change?

Burns: “I starting kicking it this year, right before spring training. Some guys at Wake Forest helped me develop it. I told [the Reds] that I’ve been working on it, I threw it a lot, and they were pretty happy with it.”

Laurila: Your fastball and slider are plus-plus pitches, while the other two aren’t at that same level. How are you approaching pitch usage in terms of using your entire repertoire versus mostly just going with your best weapons?

Burns: “I mean, two pitches at this level can be hard. A hitter can eliminate one, and that makes it a lot easier for them, so having four is huge for me. That’s something I’ve been working on in my recent outing. My changeup has been a really good pitch for me, especially against lefties.”

Laurila: You’re a power pitcher. Is that accurate?

Burns: “Yes.”

Laurila: In a perfect world, a pitcher is more than just power. Along with having nasty stuff, he knows how to “pitch.”

Burns: “I mean, that’s the end goal. When you can match those two together, being a power pitcher who throws hard, but also be able to use finesse — go up and down, in and out, be able to paint the corners — that’s what makes a pitcher really dangerous.”

Laurila: Going from being more of a thrower to more of a pitcher is an important evolution. As young as you are, do you feel you’ve turned that corner?

Burns: “I think so. Maybe some people don’t agree with that, but I feel I’ve made huge improvements from being just a guy that just tries to throw it hard to a guy that actually goes out there and pitches. But like I said earlier, it’s a growing process.”

Last week, I began a series of pieces about team win-loss totals as estimated by BaseRuns, first by taking a broad look at the methodology and its limitations, then by zooming in on the offenses that deviate most notably from their BaseRuns assessment in the run scoring department. Let’s wrap up with a look at the defenses that sit furthest from their runs allowed approximation.

In the offense edition, I used a game show format to evaluate whether the perspective offered by BaseRuns has a point, or if there’s something its methodology is overlooking. We’ll keep that framework going for the defenses as well. Here’s a reminder of how it works:

To determine whether or not BaseRuns knows what it’s talking about with respect to each team, imagine yourself sitting in the audience on a game show set. The person on your left is dressed as Little Bo Peep, while the person on your right has gone to great lengths to look like Beetlejuice. That or Michael Keaton is really hard up for money. On stage there are a series of doors, each labeled with a team name. Behind each door is a flashing neon sign that reads either “Skill Issue!” or “Built Different!” Both can be either complimentary or derogatory depending on whether BaseRuns is more or less optimistic about a team relative to its actual record. For teams that BaseRuns suggests are better than the numbers indicate, the skill issue identified is a good thing — a latent ability not yet apparent in the on-field results. But if BaseRuns thinks a team is worse than the numbers currently imply, then skill issue is used more colloquially to suggest a lack thereof. The teams that are built different buck the norms laid out by BaseRuns and find a way that BaseRuns doesn’t consider to either excel or struggle.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the caveat that his last outing was his worst of the 2025 campaign — seven earned runs over three innings against the Syracuse Mets — Cade Cavalli appears ready to return to the big leagues. Once he does, Washington Nationals fans will see a somewhat different pitcher than the one who made his last (and only) appearance in the majors on August 28, 2022. Going under the knife has a lot to do with that. After initially landing on the shelf with shoulder inflammation, Cavalli blew out and had Tommy John surgery in March 2023. At the time, the right-hander was his team’s top prospect and no. 63 on our Top 100 as a 50 FV. (Cavalli will be assigned a 45 FV on our forthcoming Nationals list.)

His return to full health was both long and arduous. After missing all of 2023, Cavalli made just a smattering of appearances a year ago, none above High-A, and he went through a dead arm phase this spring and didn’t take the mound until mid-April. Since then, he has been solid more often than not. While his ERA over 10 starts with Triple-A Rochester is 5.27, the now-26-year-old has gone five or more innings while allowing two or fewer runs on four occasions.

When we got reacquainted last month — I first interviewed him in July of 2021 when he was in Double-A — Cavalli explained how he has deviated from his pre-surgery days. Read the rest of this entry »