On Wednesday night, Nick Anderson hung a curveball. Will Smith greeted it rudely:

Two batters later, Anderson faced Edwin Ríos with a chance to get out of the inning. As Eric Longenhagen noted on our Twitch stream at the time, Anderson hung another one:

Luckily for the Rays, Ríos didn’t quite time that one up. Anderson followed it up with another curve, which bounced, and he escaped the inning. Things could have gone much worse, however, and Eric and I mused that Anderson might want to take a look at what was causing his pitches to float in like that.

It seems pretty obvious that Anderson’s breaking ball, a biting snapdragon that seems to pack two inches of horizontal break into the last 10 feet of its homeward path, is at its best when it drops most. There’s only one problem with that theory: the data. Take a look at Anderson’s curve in 2019, broken up into quartiles based on vertical break:

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Between Randy Arozarena’s remarkable postseason and Mookie Betts’ tour-de-force, there have been plenty of standout performances this October. But what Corey Seager has done in the playoffs is just as impressive. He earned the NLCS MVP award after completely demolishing the Braves pitching staff with nine hits, including five home runs and two doubles. His homer in the eighth inning of Game 2 of the World Series marked his seventh dinger of the postseason, the most hit by any shortstop in a single playoff year.

For Seager, this October has been the culmination of a year in which he’s returned to form. After injuring his elbow in early 2018, which led to Tommy John surgery, he struggled to regain his previous level of production the following season. From 2015 through April of 2018, he posted a 133 wRC+, winning the NL Rookie of the Year award in 2016 and earning All-Star honors in both ’16 and ’17. Last year, his offensive production fell to just 13% above league average, and he missed about a month of the season with a hamstring injury. But the late start to the 2020 campaign was a blessing in disguise for Seager, as the additional time off allowed him to heal and strengthen himself. Here’s how he described the state of his body to Pedro Moura of The Athletic:

“Last year especially, I just wasn’t physically as strong as I’d have liked to have been. Your body kind of changes. You get tired, things start changing positions on you. Just being strong again and being healthy again has definitely helped that.”

In 2019, Seager’s hard hit rate was just 38.2% and his average exit velocity was just 88.8 mph, both career lows. Both of those marks rebounded to career highs in 2020: a 55.9% hard hit rate and a 93.2 mph average exit velocity. That’s a stark illustration of his rebuilt strength. Read the rest of this entry »

Watching Mookie Betts on a daily basis makes it difficult to understand how his teams ever lose, though they did in Game 2 of the World Series on Wednesday night, in part because the Rays kept him in check. The 28-year-old right fielder is one of the game’s top hitters, but his contributions are hardly confined to the batter’s box, and during this postseason — as it’s been throughout his seven-year major league career — he has amply illustrated just how well-rounded his game is.

In Tuesday’s World Series-opening 8-3 victory, Betts put on a show with his baserunning, that after working a five-pitch leadoff walk against a flagging Tyler Glasnow to start the fifth inning. The Rays had just trimmed the Dodgers’ lead to 2-1, so when Betts stole second and then third base — the latter at the front end of a double steal with Corey Seager, who also walked — and then scored on a fielder’s choice thanks to a great secondary lead and a well-executed slide, it was a big deal.

Betts’ journey around the bases not only produced a run without the benefit of a base hit, it effectively tossed an anvil to Glasnow as he was trying to keep his head above water. “At that point, he was kinda not in the zone as much,” Betts told MLB Network’s Greg Amsinger afterwards. “So I knew he was going to try and slow up and get back in the zone, and I was able to take advantage of it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Prior to Game 2 of the World Series, there was little ambiguity about how Brandon Lowe’s 2020 postseason had gone. He was dreadful, owning a .107/.180/.161 slash line over 61 plate appearances with just one home run. To say the least, Tampa Bay had expected more from him — with 2.3 WAR in the regular season, he was the Rays’ most valuable player, in addition to leading the team in a host of offensive categories. His manager, Kevin Cash, continued not only to play him every day, but position him prominently at the top of the lineup. But with one disappointing series after another, he was quickly running out of time to make a positive impact.

Mercifully, that extended slump fell by the wayside on Wednesday. Lowe homered twice and drove in three runs against Dodgers pitchers, as the Rays defeated Los Angeles 6-4 and knotted the series up at a game apiece. The two sides will take a day off before reconvening Friday, with Los Angeles right-hander Walker Buehler scheduled to face Tampa Bay righty Charlie Morton.

Wednesday’s tilt had a dramatically different feel from the previous evening’s Game 1, when the Dodgers rode a dominant starting pitching performance and an offensive surge in the middle innings to an impressive victory. Los Angeles tapped right-handed rookie Tony Gonsolin as its Game 2 starter, just two days after he’d thrown two innings in a relief appearance during Game 7 of the NLCS. The decision to use Gonsolin, as opposed to Buehler on three days rest, was a signal that the Dodgers were comfortable relying upon their relievers to throw a large chunk of Game 2 — it was just unclear when we’d see them. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays made it to the World Series for a lot of reasons, but one of them is indisputably their bullpen, which has given Kevin Cash the flexibility to pull starters whenever he wants and follow them with an unending stream of hard-to-hit relievers. Cash, in turn, has used it masterfully; he’s pushed the right button at seemingly every turn. Last night, I think that might have changed.

In the top of the fifth inning, Tyler Glasnow couldn’t find the zone. He walked the first two batters he faced, allowed two runs (on a fielder’s choice that didn’t get anyone and a single), and generally looked gassed. Cash went to his reserves and brought in Ryan Yarbrough.

That sounds like a reasonable usage choice, but it’s simply not how Yarbrough is deployed most of the time. Here are the particulars of his previous playoff appearances this year:

Okay, there have only been two of them, but he’s been used as either a starter or a bulk guy in both. He throws a near-starter number of pitches and faces a small sliver of the lineup a third time through. That’s similar to his usage this regular season:

Mostly starts, with a few relief appearances thrown in. It’s not unreasonable that the Rays might want to turn him into more of a reliever in the World Series, the only round of the playoffs with off days, but 19 pitches? Four batters faced? The last time he faced four or fewer batters in the regular season was July 13, 2018. He had two short appearances to only one extended stint in last year’s ALDS, but that was part of a gambit to use a true bullpen game (Diego Castillo drew a start) with Yarbrough handling two innings, then use him as a LOOGY in two other games.

Yarbrough is essentially a starter. We had him penciled in for Game 4 of the World Series, something which would be tricky now; that would be on three days’ rest, and while he only threw 19 pitches, it’s still a disruption to his routine. The Rays still could use him there, but I think that game is now more likely to be a bullpen game with perhaps two innings out of Yarbrough. Glasnow, Snell, and Morton would then each draw two starts to fill out the full complement of seven games. Read the rest of this entry »

Tom House and Dusty Baker go way back. They were Atlanta Braves teammates from 1971-1975, and before that they roomed together in the minor leagues. Their bond remains as strong as ever. Just last week the Houston Astros manager tapped into the renowned pitching guru’s expertise — albeit for reasons you might not expect. Baker consulted with House because his second baseman was battling a serious case of the yips.

“We kind of have this troubleshooting thing,” divulged House, who is often referred to as the father of modern pitching mechanics. “When Dusty runs across something he’s not quite sure about, or if I have a question about something that I don’t have access to… we’ve maintained a pretty solid communication relationship since way back when.”

What’s shared between the old friends follows the Vegas Rule, but while anything Jose Altuve specific would thus remain in-house, an overview of the phenomenon qualifies as fair game. I asked what causes a player to suddenly not be able to throw a baseball with any degree of accuracy.

“It’s when the conscious mind and the subconscious mind have a disconnect,” explained House, who has a Ph.D. in sports psychology. “Basically, it’s what they call a double-bind — you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Your brain won’t allow your arm to throw properly, because it doesn’t want to suffer the consequences of throwing the ball. It happens with catchers all the time. Steve Sax is famous because he couldn’t throw from second base. With golf, it’s putting the ball into the hole.”

Interestingly, an attack of the yips — or, as House prefers to call them “the creature” — rarely inflicts duffers. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: This posting originally appeared on October 8. The Rangers are still accepting applications.

Position: Player Development Data Apprentice

The Texas Rangers are seeking multiple apprentices in Player Development. Each Apprentice will work full-time with one of the Rangers’ minor league affiliates and report to the Systems Integration Coordinator. Apprentices will operate as an extension of the coaching staff and be a resource for both players and coaches. Apprentices are expected to manage the collection and application of data and technology at their respective affiliate. Apprentices will gain experience across multiple areas of Baseball Operations.

Job Responsibilities

Technology Operation:

• Set up and operate bat/ball tracking technology and baseball technology.
• Assist with high frame rate video captures of hitters and pitchers.
• Manage data and collection process and assist with interpretation and upload.

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On the opening night of the 2020 World Series, a puzzled nation watched a flagging starter get lit up as he passed the 100-pitch mark and asked, “Why are they leaving that guy in there? He’s cooked!” To the relief of Dodgers fans, the subject in question wasn’t Clayton Kershaw. The three-time Cy Young winner with the rocky postseason record pitched at the top of his game on Tuesday night, dominating the Rays while the Dodgers lineup waited out opposite number Tyler Glasnow and erupted for eight runs in the middle innings. The Dodgers cruised to an 8-3 victory.

Kershaw’s three previous starts of this postseason had offered a classic case of diminishing returns. After spinning eight innings of three-hit shutout ball while striking out a career postseason-high 13 Brewers in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series, he allowed three runs in six innings in Game 2 of the Division Series against the Padres, the last two via back-to-back solo homers by Manny Machado and Eric Hosmer as they faced Kershaw for the third time. In his NLCS Game 4 start against the Braves, which had been pushed back two days due to back spasms, Kershaw allowed just one run and four hits over the first five innings and 61 pitches, but when the lineup turned over, the dangerous Ronald Acuña Jr., Freddie Freeman, and Marcell Ozuna all reached base — the last two via balls hit at 105 mph or higher — opening the floodgates to a seven-run inning in what became a 10-2 rout.

From the Dodgers’ side, this outing was hardly as fraught. While Kershaw allowed two of the first three Rays he faced to reach base via a Yandy Díaz single and a Randy Arozarena walk, he struck out Hunter Renfroe on a curveball in the dirt — his only swing and miss from among his 20 first-inning pitches — and made a good defensive play on a Manuel Margot dribbler to escape. That began a run of 13 straight Rays retired; he didn’t need more than 14 pitches in any of his other five innings, and three times needed 11 or fewer. His 92.5 mph first-inning fastball velocity boded well; it was just 0.1 off his season high, set in that Wild Card Series start, and matched his Division Series start. By comparison, he was at a season-low 90.7 mph in the first inning of his NLCS start. Read the rest of this entry »

October hasn’t been the kindest month to Cody Bellinger. Though he’s established himself as one of the game’s top sluggers while helping the Dodgers reach the World Series in three of his four major league seasons, and collected some big postseason hits here and there, his overall postseason numbers have generally fallen far short of what he’s done during the regular season. Even after a disappointing, abbreviated 2020 campaign, he’s had his ups and downs this fall, though he finished the NLCS on just about the highest possible note, clubbing a no-doubt solo home run that capped the Dodgers’ Game 7 comeback and sent them to a pennant:

My goodness. Bellinger walked towards first base so slowly and indirectly while admiring the blast that it seemed like he might make a stop to feed the parking meter or grab a hot dog — no extra mustard needed. Statcast measured the exit velocity on that one at 107.4 mph but estimated its distance at “only” 400 feet, the byproduct of its steep 33-degree launch angle.

Bellinger is now hitting .250/.365/.545 in 52 plate appearances during this postseason, good for a 141 wRC+ and a reasonable approximation for his regular season career line (.273/.364/.547, 137 wRC+). It’s a far cry better than the totality of his 2017-20 postseason numbers (.196/.269/.380, 73 wRC+), that’s for sure. Read the rest of this entry »

The Los Angeles Dodgers completed their three-game NLCS comeback on Sunday night, beating the Atlanta Braves to reach their third World Series in four years. Joining the Dodgers in Texas will be the Tampa Bay Rays, who avoided an embarrassing four-game reverse sweep at the hands of the Houston Astros by the skin of their teeth the day before. In what will hopefully prove to be 2020’s final mischievous prank, the most unorthodox season in baseball history has ended up with the most orthodox result: despite a 16-team playoff format that held little advantage for the top seeds, the World Series matchup features the clubs with the best records in their respective leagues. For both, a championship would end significant droughts, as the Dodgers have not won a Fall Classic since 1988, and the Rays have yet to grab a title since at least the Big Bang, approximately 13.8 billion years ago.

Fittingly in a matchup of the two best teams, ZiPS sees the win probabilities as very close, with the Dodgers squeezing out a slight 53%-47% edge in the projections. But while these squads may be similar in their quality, they approach baseball’s financial world quite differently; the Dodgers are big spenders while the Rays regularly have a payrolls that rank near the bottom of the league. With the outcome squarely in the realm of coin flip, small things will likely decide the series winner. To that end, I’ve outlined seven questions, the answers to which will determine how fate conducts its deliberations. Read the rest of this entry »