In May, I took a look at some of the most compelling storylines in the American League for the teams least likely to make the postseason. Since that post ran, Shohei Ohtani has been involved in a benches clearing incident (don’t worry, he’s fine) and Miguel Cabrera inched closer to his 3,000th hit with this bases-clearing double to put the Tigers ahead of the Brewers:

The Brewers are in first place in the NL Central right now, so they will not be making another appearance in this post, as our projections like their chances in a tight division race and predict that they’ll hold that spot to win the division. No, this post is for the teams that are much less likely to make the postseason — the teams that won’t play meaningful baseball in October, but that can hopefully still offer something to the fans who continue to show up. Let’s delve into the prospects, players, and milestones on the horizon for the non-contenders in the Senior Circuit. Read the rest of this entry »

Emerson Hancock brought a power arsenal with him to the Seattle Mariners organization. Drafted sixth-overall last year out of the University of Georgia, the 22-year-old right-hander features a mid-90s fastball, a biting slider, a plus changeup, and a capable curveball. But he’s not your prototypical flamethrower. While not backing away from the power-pitcher label, Hancock fashions himself more as a craftsman, a starter who can go deep into games by mixing and matching, and by commanding the strike zone. His track record backs that up. Over his final two collegiate seasons — this in the talent-laded SEC — he logged 131 strikeouts, and walked just 21, in 114-and-a-third innings.

No. 4 on our Mariners Top Prospects list, Hancock currently has a 2.19 ERA in four starts comprising 12.1 innings with the High-A Everett AquaSox. He talked pitching with FanGraphs over the weekend.

———

David Laurila: To start, give me a self scouting report. How do you identify as a pitcher?

Emerson Hancock: “One thing I’ve always tried to do, especially since college, is be able to ‘pitch’ — mix speeds, throw pitches in different locations, throw anything in any count to get hitters off balance. That’s something I take pride in. Another thing is trying to do the little things right, like holding runners.”

Laurila: You have plus stuff. How do you go about balancing power and command?

Hancock: “Something that’s helped me is that I haven’t always had the power. In high school, I struggled to have that big-time velocity, so I kind of had to learn at a younger age how to ‘pitch.’ At Georgia, [velocity] started happening — it came along — so now I had this other way. I had to learn how to use it. Even now, in the minor leagues, I’m trying to find different ways to use it. It’s something that’s always evolving for me.” Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Ethan Small, LHP, Milwaukee Brewers
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Biloxi  Age: 24   Org Rank: TBD   FV: 45
Line: 5.2 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 8 K

Notes
Small had a sketchy spring with the big club and has walked an uncharacteristically high number of hitters early on this year, but his last couple of starts have been more in line with expectations as he blows his low-90s fastball (which has big time carry) past opposing hitters. Small’s best secondary pitch remains his changeup and there were doubts about him ever finding a competent breaking ball when he was drafted. So far, his slider and curveball remain below average but that there are now two distinct breakers here is meaningful. He still projects as a No. 4/5 starter with a shot to make the back of the Top 100 as a 50 FV if the command and/or breaking balls tighten up. Read the rest of this entry »

Evan Longoria has been as critical to the Giants’ success this season as any of their grizzled veterans, but the NL West leaders (!) could be without the 35-year-old third baseman until after the All-Star break. Longoria suffered a sternoclavicular dislocation of his left shoulder in a collision on Saturday, and landed on the 10-day Injured List. Ouch!

The injury occurred during the top of the ninth inning of the Giants’ game against the Cubs. Shifted towards second base with lefty Anthony Rizzo at the plate, Longoria ranged to his left to field a soft chopper, where he ran into shortstop Brandon Crawford and got the worst of it, and not only because Rizzo was safe at first as Kris Bryant scored. Longoria remained on the ground for several minutes and left the field accompanied by the team’s head athletic trainer, Anthony Reyes:

Crawford was uninjured, but Longoria was placed on the IL on Sunday with what was initially termed a left shoulder sprain, and initial indications that he would miss four to six weeks. Sunday brought a bit more specificity, via The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly:

Evan Longoria said he was diagnosed with a dislocated SC joint, which links the clavicle to the sternum. So the pain isn't in his shoulder. It's a weird injury and he isn't sure what to expect timetable wise. He's had X-rays but not an MRI yet.

— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) June 6, 2021

Sternoclavicular joint dislocations aren’t often seen in baseball; they’re more often associated with motor vehicle accidents or collision sports such as football and rugby. Anterior dislocations such as the one Longoria apparently suffered, are one matter, but posterior dislocations can be life-threatening, as they can affect a person’s esophagus, airway, or vital arteries. Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Crawford’s career has always centered around his elite defense; he’s won three Gold Gloves and has been one of the best defenders in baseball over the last decade. But behind the accolades for his glove was a quietly improving offensive player. He upped his wRC+ each season in his first five and earned down-ballot MVP votes in 2016 on the back of 5.2 WAR and career-best defensive metrics. Heading into his age-30 season in ’17, our positional power rankings pegged him as one of the best shortstops in baseball and projected him for 3.5 WAR.

Instead, Crawford started a sharp decline, putting up just 4.4 WAR over the next three years. By the time 2020 rolled around, his career was a half-sunk dinghy; coming off of a near–replacement-level season, he was expected to lose playing time. And his downturn couldn’t have come at a worse time, with free agency coming after the 2021 season and the Giants under new boss Farhan Zaidi beginning to transition away from the aging veterans who made up a big chunk of San Francisco’s roster. But facing the end, Crawford posted a 111 wRC+ and a career-high .209 ISO last season, then built on that improvement this year with a 141 wRC+ and 2.1 WAR — the latter the best figure than he’s put up since ’17.

The following chart shows a closer look at his late-career resurgence.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve read a lot of my work here, you probably know that I’m a huge fan of bunting. Some bunting, at least — I’m not talking about bone-headed sacrifices at the altar of small ball. There’s just something satisfying about a well-placed bunt, pushed past the pitcher and to an open space vacated by the defense. Bunts against the shift are a delight. Bunts not against the shift, where the hitter is simply better at bunting than the defense is at defending, are great too. This article is not about one of those bunts.

On Friday night, the Dodgers were locked in a tight battle. Runs had been hard to come by against opposing starter Ian Anderson, though Julio Urías was doing his part to keep the team in the game, surrendering only a solo home run through four innings. In the top of the fifth, Urías got a chance to help the team on the offensive end as well. With runners on first and third and the game tied after a close play at the plate, he stepped up to bat with one out in the inning.

Urías isn’t a bad hitter, at least as far as pitchers go. He sports a career line of .175/.188/.190, a fair sight better than the overall .124/.143/.159 line across baseball over the course of his career. Still, he’s an awful hitter, as far as major league hitters go. Dave Roberts called for a bunt. Read the rest of this entry »

Cole Winn has been on a roll. Pitching for the Double-A Frisco Rough Riders, the 21-year-old right-hander is coming off consecutive scoreless starts where he’s allowed just one hit and fanned 13 batters in 12 innings of near-spotless work. The earlier of those outings was notable for more than just his dominance. As the 2018 first-rounder stood on the mound, a fox darted across the field, traversed the warning track, and finally escaped, untouched by human hands.

Winn — No. 3 on our Texas Rangers Top Prospects list and with a 1.63 ERA on the season — talked pitching (and fox-delays) prior to last Thursday’s game.

———

David Laurila: Before we get to pitching, I need to ask you about the fox…

Cole Winn: “I didn’t see it until after I threw the pitch. It was kind of a blur that ran right in front of me. And it was a little bit frustrating that it took so long to get it off the field, because I felt like I was in a good groove. I was on a roll, and that kind of slowed me up for a pitch or two before I got back into it. But honestly, it’s one of the strangest things that’s ever had happened to me — or that I’ve ever witnessed — on a baseball field.”

Laurila: Where was the fox when you first noticed it?

Winn: “When I first saw it, it was right in front of me. Like, it ran between home plate and the pitcher’s mound. I have no clue where it came from. I asked around, and no one else knew where it came from. So it was strange. It was really strange.”

Laurila: The video I saw ended with the fox still running along the warning track. How did it get off the field? Read the rest of this entry »

Jharel Cotton is trying to revive his career in the Texas Rangers organization. Three years removed from Tommy John surgery — and four years after making 24 starts for the Oakland A’s — the 29-year-old native of the Virgin Islands is taking the mound for the Triple-A Round Rock Express. Progress has been slower than ideal. In eight appearances comprising 17-and-two-thirds innings, Cotton has a 4.58 ERA and, more importantly, less feel for his deliveries that he did pre-injury.

He believes it’s only a matter of time.

“I didn’t play in 2018, I barely played in 2019, and 2020 was a scratch because of the pandemic,” Cotton explained earlier this week. “Now 1 have a full year, and within a full year I’ll be back to myself. I just have to keep putting in the work and trusting the process — going through the process of getting my arm to feel normal again. A lot of guys get back quickly and other guys get back not as quick. Everything will work out in its own time.”

Cotton’s velocity is slowly coming back — his fastball has been ranging between 92-96 mph — although his command has lagged a little behind. Ditto the crispness of his cutter, curveball, and changeup. But again, he’s not overly concerned. As he put it, “I lost a lot of those things, but I feel I’m putting the pieces back together.”

Cotton’s comeback isn’t the only reason I wanted to talk to him for today’s column. I also wanted to revisit a story I’d read about him back when he was still pitching for the A’s.

Originally in the Los Angeles Dodgers system, Cotton went to Oakland in August 2016 as part of a five-player deal involving Rich Hill. A few years earlier, he was a minor-leaguer making ends meet during the offseason. That’s when he learned to love shoveling snow. Read the rest of this entry »

It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that 2021 hasn’t gone exactly according to the plans of the Minnesota Twins. In the American League Central standings, the club currently ranks dead last, looking up at the hindquarters of even the Detroit Tigers. Only the Orioles and Rangers have worse records in the AL this season, and neither of those teams was expected to be even remotely relevant come October. This isn’t a case of a team starting off 0-3 and the standings looking funny; clubs are passing the one-third mark of the season this week. Like most good teams that are struggling, the problem is a multifaceted one and not easily repaired. But at 12 games behind the White Sox in a weak division, urgent measures are required if the Twins aren’t ready to go 2022 calendar shopping.

Twins diehards would tell you that injuries share a lot of the blame, and they definitely have a point here. If you take a peek at our Injury Report, you’ll find 10 players currently on the Injured List; the team has had 22 total IL stints this season. By contrast, the Royals have had only 10 players on the IL at any point this season, with the Tigers at 12, the White Sox at 13, and Cleveland at a minuscule five. At some point or another this season, the majority of the team’s desired starting lineup has been on the shelf with an injury. Opening Day was the only game where Twins managed to have a starting lineup consisting entirely of the players initially expected to get the majority of the playing time at each position. The Twins have been decimated by injuries, and that is naturally going to have a significant effect on the bottom line.

Case solved, case closed? Hold on there, take those books out of your backpack; we’re not done here. The injuries have affected the team, but they only explain part of the win shortfall. To get a rough idea of this, I went back to what the ZiPS-projected record for each team at this point would be after the games of June 3, then re-did the projection with the preseason projections for players while reflecting the actual distribution of playing time.

Read the rest of this entry »

Though the 13-game losing streak that left them with the NL’s worst record came to an end on Sunday, the Diamondbacks’ season has taken another turn for the worse, with Madison Bumgarner leaving Wednesday’s start against the Mets after just two innings due to discomfort in his left shoulder. Fortunately, an MRI revealed nothing more than inflammation, though he landed on the injured list anyway, joining three other members of the team’s starting five. That’s hardly the only issue holding down the rebuilding Diamondbacks, who at 20–38 are on pace to lose 106 games.

Even before he took the mound on Wednesday at Chase Field, Bumgarner’s performance this season had veered all over the map. He allowed 17 runs in 13.2 innings over his first three starts, then went on a five-start run during which he allowed just three runs in 30 innings. On April 25, he spun a seven-inning no-hitter — a feat not officially recognized by Major League Baseball, but the high point of the 31-year-old southpaw’s season — in the nightcap of a doubleheader against the Braves. Bumgarner’s performance has deteriorated since then, however, with 16 runs and eight walks in 14 innings over three starts from May 17 to 28.

Even that couldn’t have prepared anyone for what took place on Wednesday. Facing a makeshift Mets lineup that included James McCann in the third spot and just two regulars (leadoff hitter Jonathan Villar and cleanup hitter Pete Alonso) who entered the game with a wRC+ of 100 or better, Bumgarner began by allowing six straight hits, including a three-run homer by McCann, and four runs. The Diamondbacks countered by piling up five runs against Mets starter David Peterson and reliever Robert Gsellman, with Bumgarner’s own two-out RBI single giving his team a 5–4 lead. But he couldn’t hold it in the second inning, yielding a one-out single to Villar and then a two-out RBI double to McCann.

Read the rest of this entry »