2021 must be the year for bizarro no-hitters. First, Joe Musgrove threw the first no-no in Padres history and was just a hit batsmen away from a perfect game. Likewise with Carlos Rodón’s no-hitter — one Roberto Pérez-sized foot away from perfection. Madison Bumgarner threw a seven-inning no-hitter that wasn’t officially a no-hitter. On Wednesday afternoon, John Means became the third pitcher to throw an official no-hitter this year, facing just 27 Mariners and coming oh so close to perfection.

A fan unfamiliar with the minutiae of the baseball rule book might wonder why Means’s dominant start wasn’t considered a perfect game. After all, he faced the minimum number of batters without allowing a walk, hit-by-pitch, or an error. For Means, his dalliance with perfection was thwarted by a wild pitch on a third strike, allowing Sam Haggerty to reach base. He was the 12th pitcher to face 27 batters in a no-hitter without throwing a perfect game. It was the first no-hitter in Major League history where the only baserunner reached on a dropped third strike.

Rule 5.05(a)(2) is an oddity that has lived on in the baseball rulebook for centuries. It’s a relic of a time when strikeout and walks didn’t exist and the batter simply had three attempts to hit the ball. After their third try, the ball was considered in play and the batter could attempt to run to first base to avoid the out. As the game evolved over time, and strikeouts were introduced, this archaic rule lived on, one that, in this author’s opinion, doesn’t really make a lot of sense in the context of the modern game.

That dropped third strike rule was the only thing separating Means from the first perfect game since Félix Hernández threw his in 2012. That it happened in the third inning made it completely innocuous during the run of play. Haggerty was thrown out attempting to steal second a few pitches later and the game moved on. Except Means retired the next 19 batters in a row and that seemingly benign event became the only blemish on his otherwise perfect afternoon. Read the rest of this entry »

With a revamped lineup, rotation, and front office, the Mets were supposed to rank among the NL’s top teams, ideally while offering at least somewhat less dysfunction than during the Wilpon family’s tenure as owners. Given an offense that has wheezed its way to an NL-low 3.30 runs per game as the team has stumbled to an 11-12 start, however, the Mets’ brass decided to shake things up by firing hitting coaches Chili Davis and Tom Slater after Monday night’s 6-5 loss to the Cardinals. The pair have been replaced by Hugh Quattlebaum, previously the Mets’ minor league director of hitting development, and Kevin Howard, their director of player development. You may be shocked to learn that this move did not come off smoothly.

It’s not the fault of Davis, who was in his third season as the Mets’ hitting coach, or Slater, in his fourth season as the assistant hitting coach, that key newcomers Francisco Lindor and James McCann and holdovers such as Dominic Smith and Jeff McNeil have all underperformed on the offensive side. The latter duo had previously thrived under Davis and Slater, and currently Pete Alonso and Brandon Nimmo are knocking the stuffing out of the ball. Scapegoating coaches is a time-honored tradition by struggling teams, however. If you can’t fire the players…

The timing of the dismissals was curious, to say the least. The Mets had scored 18 runs over their previous three games, two of them wild weekend wins over the Phillies, snapping out of a skid during which they had scored just seven runs over their previous five games against the Nationals and Red Sox. Read the rest of this entry »

Cole Wilcox started to say “two-seamer” when bringing up the fastball he threw at the University of Georgia. The 21-year-old Tampa Bay Rays prospect then reversed course and called it a sinker, which it really wasn’t. Featuring mostly arm-side run, the high-velocity offering got only a modicum of depth. Given the grip, that kind of came with the territory. More on that in a moment.

Wilcox was selected in the third round of the 2020 draft by San Diego, who subsequently shipped the right-hander to the Rays as part of the Blake Snell deal. Seen as a potential first-rounder last summer — signability questions caused the sophomore-eligible draftee to drop — Wilcox spent time at the Padres alternate site prior to changing organizations in December. It was there that he restructured an arsenal that now comprises a two-seamer, a slider, a changeup, and a work-in-progress four-seamer.

Which brings us to the heater he’d featured in the SEC. Regardless of how one might define it, it’s now part of his past.

“It used to be a four-seam sinker,” explained Wilcox, who is beginning the current campaign with the Low-A Charleston River Dogs. “Really, the only thing good about it was that it was hard. That’s what I threw in college, but since I’ve been in pro ball, I’ve switched to a two-seam. It gets a lot more movement, a lot more depth.” Read the rest of this entry »

Building off of yesterday’s American League conference call agendas, let’s move on to the National League and see what’s on the docket for the teams of the senior circuit.

Arizona Diamondbacks

• We’re over .500 and we’re banged up. This team is better than people on the outside thought. That said, I don’t think we’ll be exceptionally busy in terms of buying this summer. We’re not catching the Padres or Dodgers, and let’s not forget about the Giants. Let’s stick to the plan and just keep getting better long-term.
• The rotation has been up-and-down, and Corbin Martin is probably the only minor league piece with a chance to contribute in that area. Let’s get some ideas going as to how we get through 162 games with depth issues in that department.
• Let’s have some initial talks about draft strategy, as we’re picking sixth. It feels like there is a four-player tier at the top of the draft, so let’s see if there’s a tier-two player we like at six, or if we should be more creative and spread the wealth a bit.
• The offense overall has been good, but our infield is not hitting. There aren’t any immediate moves to make, but it sure would be nice to see Seth Beer get off to a nice start to gauge whether he can get some at-bats up here as a Christian Walker replacement.
• We love having the presence of Eduardo Escobar and Asdrúbal Cabrera, but there should be a market for both this July, and we should be listening. Let’s focus on arms in those discussions.
• The same goes for David Peralta, even though he’s been our second best hitter and is signed for next year as well. That extra year, which is a cheap one at that ($7.5 million), should help generate some interest.

Read the rest of this entry »

It was the first game of the season for the Mets, played in front of an eager, raucous Philly crowd — and for the first six innings, it was a game that belonged to Jacob deGrom. He held the Phillies scoreless, striking out seven, allowing only three hits. He even helped his own cause at the plate, driving in one of the Mets’ two runs — a classically deGrom lack of run support; no wonder he had to do it himself. Even with the number of baserunners the Mets had left stranded, two felt like it could be enough. Even after deGrom left the game, Miguel Castro pitched a clean seventh.

And then came the eighth. Trevor May was on the mound. He struck out Adam Haseley. Then, on his second pitch to Brad Miller, a single. Then Andrew McCutchen drew a walk. A mound visit — it was time for concern — and then, on a pitch well outside the zone, Rhys Hoskins, too, singled. The bases were loaded, and none other than Bryce Harper was coming up to the plate.

May was done. The bleeding needed to stop immediately. So in came Aaron Loup, the veteran lefty whose control has always seemed to be extremely on or extremely off. Harper fouled off Loup’s curveball. Loup’s next pitch hit him in the shoulder. The lead was halved — and, thanks to the three-batter minimum, there was no recourse for Luis Rojas. Loup had to stay in and face J.T. Realmuto. With one more pitch, the lead evaporated. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s not sugarcoat it: Kris Bryant was bad last year. Sure, it was only 147 plate appearances, but the sheer broadness of his struggles made it feel longer. He set career lows in batting average, OBP, slugging percentage, walk rate, barrel rate — you name it, and there’s a good chance he fell short in it. With the Cubs in salary relief mode this offseason, there was talk of a non-tender, and it certainly wasn’t good for Bryant’s free agency hopes.

That feels like less of a worry now. Through the first month of the season, Bryant has been tremendous. April marks don’t compare well to full-season numbers, but far from continuing his swoon, he’s posting the best numbers of his career nearly across the board. He looks like an MVP candidate again, and it’s a good thing for the Cubs, who need all the offensive help they can get given how many of their regulars are struggling.

What changed? As Tom Verducci detailed, Bryant is swinging differently, and it’s paid dividends so far this year. Let’s dig into the numbers and see how that new swing (in fairness, it’s still pretty similar to the old swing) is working so well.

Take a look at this heatmap of the four-seam fastballs Bryant faced in 2015 and ’16:

That’s right: four-seam fastballs low in the zone. Bryant devoured those pitches en route to 14 WAR over the two years. Next, look at the four-seamers he saw in 2019 and ’20:

Read the rest of this entry »

The White Sox took a giant blow Sunday when young centerfielder Luis Robert injured his right hip flexor running to first while trying to beat out a grounder to third against Cleveland. As it turns out, the injury wasn’t minor, as he was diagnosed with a Grade III strain — a complete rupture of the muscle involved — and will not be able to resume baseball activities for 12–16 weeks.

Chicago hasn’t officially ruled out Robert for the season, but there’s enough uncertainty that senior VP/general manager Rick Hahn did not give a particularly optimistic assessment of when his return could be.

“But it’s safe to say in terms of projecting his possible return, it’s too soon to know. Quite frankly, we are not going to be able to provide you with an educated projection of that for another 12 weeks or so as we see how he progresses.”

The most serious consequence of Robert’s injury is naturally a painful recovery process for last year’s AL Rookie of the Year runner-up. But the White Sox have more than 130 games to play, meaning there will also be consequences for the team and some pivotal decisions to make.

Losing Robert is particularly unwelcome for the Sox, as he represents the second serious loss at a position at which they’re not terribly deep. In an unfortunately timely look I did last month at baseball’s most irreplaceable players, the ZiPS projections pegged him as the seventh-most crucial player in the majors in terms of effect on the playoff race.

From a straight-up projection standpoint, Robert falls short of most of the names on this list. Just on the Sox, ZiPS thinks Lucas Giolito is a significantly more valuable player overall, at least when he’s not pitching in the morning. But if something should happen to Giolito, Chicago has spare arms to patch up the hole. If the team loses Robert, let’s just say ZiPS does not have a case of Leurymania or Engelalia. The race with the Twins is likely going to be a tight one, and the Royals have shown surprising spunk. The White Sox could ill afford an injury to their center fielder.

Read the rest of this entry »

Through the first four starts of his season, Dustin May looked as though he’d put it all together. The hard-throwing, high-kicking ginger mop top was getting the strikeouts to match his elite stuff, and putting together a performance that fit right in with the rest of the Dodgers’ top-notch rotation. Unfortunately, it’s going to be a long while before May gets to build upon his strong showing. After leaving Saturday’s start against the Brewers in obvious pain, he’ll undergo Tommy John surgery on May 11 and miss the remainder of the season, an injury that comes at a time when the Dodgers’ vaunted depth has already taken significant hits on both sides of the ball.

In the second inning of Saturday’s game, May threw a 2-2 pitch to Billy McKinney that was a couple of feet outside. The 23-year-old righty winced, signaled for the trainer, and then departed, with manager Dave Roberts describing him reporting “a shooting sensation” in his right elbow. An MRI revealed the UCL damage, and he’ll go under the knife of Dr. Neal ElAttrache next week.

As Jake Mailhot documented less than two weeks ago, by mixing his curve and 98-99 mph four-seam fastball into what was predominantly a sinker/cutter mix, May was missing far more bats this year than before with his light-up-the-radar-gun stuff. Updating the stats, where he had struck out 20.8% of batters in his 80.2 innings in 2019-20, he’d nearly doubled that to 37.6% in 23 innings this year — the NL’s fourth-highest rate among pitchers with at least 20 innings behind Jacob deGrom, Corbin Burnes, and Freddy Peralta. Meanwhile, May’s 31.2% strikeout-to-walk differential ranked third behind only Burnes and deGrom. Of the Dodgers’ other starters, only Clayton Kershaw has outdone both his 2.74 ERA and 3.24 FIP, while only Trevor Bauer has the better ERA, and Julio Urías and Walker Buehler the better FIPs. All told, he was hangin’ with the big boys and fitting right in. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite playing for the Yankees and having the largest contract ever handed out to a pitcher, I think Gerrit Cole’s start to the 2021 season is going under the radar. Now, I have no empirical evidence that this is the case, but go with me here. I think two things are at play. First, Jacob deGrom is striking out every batter he faces (do not fact check me on that) and plays in the same city. Second, the Yankees’ struggles have been the talk of baseball in the early going, with much of the focus centered on the lineup and rightfully so. The team’s performance thus far has been extremely underwhelming, though they are 9-4 since their 5-10 start.

None of the blame for the Yankees tepid beginning can be put on Cole, however. He is off to a fantastic start. Through his first six starts, he has struck out 44.3% of the batters he has faced and walked only 2.1%. That strikeout rate is third in the majors behind deGrom and Corbin Burnes; the walk rate sits fourth in the league behind Burnes, Zach Eflin, and Walker Buehler. Put those two figures together and Cole has a K-BB% of 42.1%, only a few percentage points behind Burnes and deGrom and a shade under 10 percentage points above Joe Musgrove. The difference between Cole and Musgrove is about the same as the difference between Musgrove and Clayton Kershaw who is 19th on the leaderboard. Cole’s 2.4 WAR is tops in the league, though he has made one more start than both deGrom and Burnes, though I will note that he has only thrown two and two thirds more innings than deGrom so on a rate basis he has actually been more effective in accumulating WAR. Most of the difference has to do with a .315 BABIP allowed compared to deGrom’s .241 and a strand rate that is 8.3 percentage points lower.

So, Cole has been great. But this is not a breakout. Cole has been one of the best handful of pitchers in the sport since he first donned an Astros uniform in 2018. In the three preceding seasons, he posted a 36.6% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate over 485.2 innings, good for 6.05 WAR per 200 innings pitched. What is notable is that early on, he is pitching as well as ever. Better even. Since 2018, Cole only has one six start stretch where he struck out at least 44.3% of opposing hitters (44.6% from the end of July to end of August in 2018) and he has never posted a six start stretch walking so few batters (on a rate basis). At this point baseball fans are accustomed to Cole’s dominance over the opposition, but the degree to which he is doing so is unprecedented. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, you may have noticed that Kenta Maeda prominently featured in a Matthew Roberson article on this site, though probably not in the way he would have liked. He was the guy throwing the pitches that led to the “nearly 900 feet of home run” that Franmil Reyes hit. Maeda has been on the business end of a lot of home run highlights so far this year. He’s already given up seven of them after only surrendering nine last year in three times the number of innings pitched.

This is the same guy who finished second in AL Cy Young voting last season and allowed a stingy .219 wOBA (97th percentile). This year things are quite different, as Maeda carries a 6.56 ERA, a 6.16 FIP and a 4.19 xFIP through his first five starts. That 97th percentile wOBA from last season? Well it’s in the fourth percentile this season at .439. You might look at his elite walk rate of 4.5%, his swollen HR/FB rate of 26.9% and his soaring .372 BABIP and think that this is just a bit of bad luck. He’s not going to end the season having more than a quarter of his fly balls go for homers. But there’s more than just bad luck going on here. Maeda is getting hit extremely hard. He’s already allowed as many hard hits (95 mph or higher) in 2021 as he did all of last season and his xERA (the newest ERA estimator found here at FanGraphs, courtesy of Statcast) is 5.17.

So what’s going on? If you came into this article knowing anything about Maeda, it might be the fact that he has a great slider. According to our pitch values, it’s hard to find one better. Maeda’s was the sixth best slider in baseball from 2016-20. Here are his pitch values on his four main offerings throughout his career, with usage thrown in as well.

Over the years, he has become more reliant on his plus slider and this year is no different, as he’s throwing it at a career-high rate. But the pitch has betrayed him completely. All of his pitches have struggled, mind you, but because the slider has been his most consistent pitch throughout his career, I think it’s worth focusing on. Read the rest of this entry »