The inspiration for a new pitch design can strike at any moment. Usually, it’s a coach or a teammate sharing their well-earned wisdom or tricks-of-the-trade. Sometimes a new pitch is developed during bullpen sessions as a pitcher tinkers with a new grip or finger placement. More recently, pitch design has been outsourced to technologically advanced pitching labs like Driveline, where pitchers try to harness all the data at their disposal to create the most effective pitch possible. But for Devin Williams, the design for his changeup didn’t come from any of the normal avenues. Instead, it was developed on the neighborhood fields of his childhood.

In a recent media session, he described how he had thrown a version of what is now his changeup since he was growing up:

“I started throwing like that as a kid. Like, when I played catch with my friends, just to mess with people, trying to make them miss the ball when I threw it to them. That’s what turned into my changeup. I’ve had that since I was maybe 10 years old.”

Changeups come in a variety of types and styles. There’s the classic change that relies on a high velocity differential off the fastball to create deception. The circle change adds tumbling vertical movement to further differentiate the pitch from a heater. Felix Hernandez’s cambio redefined what a modern changeup could look like without the trademark velocity differential. Williams’ changeup is an entirely different beast, making it a changeup unique in baseball — the unicorn changeup. Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Raymond knows the West. The team he does play-by-play for, the Texas Rangers, not only competes in the American League West, their inter-league schedule this year comprises solely the National League equivalent. As a result, Raymond has been getting regular looks at two of the game’s most talent-rich divisions. In terms of powerhouse clubs and marquee players, the West is arguably baseball’s best.

How would Raymond rank the teams and players he’s seen this season? That was the crux of a conversation I had with the TV voice of the Rangers prior to last night’s game.

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David Laurila: Which is the best team you’ve seen this year?

Dave Raymond: “I’ve been really impressed with the Padres. They looked really good against us [in mid-August]. We may have gotten them right on the way to their peak — and that might have been us headed right to the trough — but they were really impressive. They have so much great young talent. There are guys like Jake Cronenworth who are hardly even noticed in the shadow of Fernando Tatis Jr. I mean, Cronenworth has to be the top rookie-of-the-year candidate right now, and he doesn’t even stand out on that team.

“Even Manny Machado. It looked like the energy of some of the young players is lifting him a little bit. He made some plays against the Rangers that were were pretty neat. You got a glimpse again of that young Manny Machado who won a Gold Glove and was more of the all-round player.

“But here’s my thought about the Padres: if you look at that lineup, find me the homegrown guy. He’s not there. It’s made up of all these pieces that were plucked from different organizations in trades and free agent signings. In kind of a perverse way, it’s really remarkable. I don’t think anybody sets out to build a championship team almost exclusively from other teams, but that’s kind of what they’ve done. And we just saw them, at the trade deadline, going out and aggressively bringing in even more guys from other organizations. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I say anything, take a look at this Raimel Tapia sac fly, which scored Matt Kemp in the bottom of the ninth at Coors Field last night.

It is incredible how the stakes of professional sports manage to be world-shakingly massive and completely meaningless at the very same time. At stake in any given baseball game is millions of dollars of investment, millions of hours of training, the hopes and dreams of millions of fans, the dedication of entire lifetimes. And yet, the only thing physically at stake is how, exactly, a small leather ball will travel through space: whether it will leave the stadium, or land in the catcher’s glove; whether it will be caught, or hit the grass; whether it will stay firm in the grip of a player’s hand, or slide through it, errant, to go off in some unintended direction. If these physical stakes were not so small, to fail when so much is riding on one’s ability to succeed would be, I imagine, unbearably devastating. But even the most horrible loss is reliably followed by another game — because they are, in the end, games.

That reliable continuity in the face of constant failure can be very reassuring for a normal, non-famous-athlete person. Life, to paraphrase a very unwise man, is literally all we have. And though the stakes of the average person’s everyday activities, taken in the context of the world at large, aren’t very high, they are, in another sense, everything. My small, sad everyday failures are just as small and sad and arbitrary as a ball falling from a glove onto a grass field — but because my life is composed entirely of the everyday and the insignificant, even these failures can seem insurmountable. Yet every day, I watch people who have much more to lose than I do somehow rebound from their inevitable failures to play again, and again, and again. Often, I wonder how they do it. Read the rest of this entry »

For the last 15 years, Yusmeiro Petit has cast a spell over opposing hitters. He’s never thrown hard — his highest average fastball velocity was 89.6 mph in 2017, more than a decade into his career. He’s never been an All-Star, never received award votes. He’s been sketchy at times — his rookie season for the Florida (!) Marlins produced a 9.57 ERA. He didn’t pitch in the majors in 2010 or 2011. Through it all, however, he’s kept going, showed up and provided competent innings. He’s almost 36, and it feels like he might pitch until he’s 80.

That consistency is merely an illusion, however. When Petit first made the majors, he was pretty bad against lefties. Most righties get a little bit worse against left-handed batters; they strike out roughly two percentage points fewer opponents and walk roughly two percentage points more. Petit, on the other hand, turned into a pumpkin:

That split is through the end of 2017. I’m now going to do something that I strongly urge you not to do in your investigations of platoon splits — chop them up into smaller pieces. Since the beginning of the 2018 season, Petit’s platoon splits look different:

It’s a small sample, but I’m inclined to believe it. From 2008 (the beginning of pitch tracking data) to 2017, Petit threw his changeup to lefties 22.1% of the time. Since the beginning of 2018, he’s more or less doubled it, to 41.3%. Changeups are a righty’s best friend against lefties, so the improvement makes sense. Read the rest of this entry »

Wracked by injuries and currently running fourth in the NL East at 15-20 — but even so just two games out of the eighth playoff spot — the Mets added a trio of players via separate deadline deals with the Rangers and Orioles on Monday. While catcher Robinson Chirinos and infielder Todd Frazier are the more familiar names and could have relevance beyond this season, it’s reliever Miguel Castro who will probably have the most staying power. Each addition addresses an area of need, though their 2020 impact might be minimal, and the hard-throwing righty did cost them a prospect of note as well as either a player to be named later or cash.

On a team that lost Noah Syndergaard to Tommy John surgery and Marcus Stroman to an opt-out, then sent Michael Wacha and now Steven Matz to the Injured List with shoulder woes, the Mets have raided their bullpen to draft Robert Gsellman and Seth Lugo into the rotation alongside Jacob deGrom, Rick Porcello, and rookie David Peterson. Particularly with Dellin Betances joining the IL due to right lat tightness, the need for competent relief work became particularly acute, and the addition of Castro, a 25-year-old righty with a live arm, helps to remedy that. Castro’s two-seam fastball averages 97.7 mph and goes as high as 99; as Ben Clemens recently observed, when he’s facing lefties, he tends to use his changeup as a secondary pitch, while against righties, he goes to his slider as an alternative. The fastball is even more hittable than most, but the secondary pitches are very good.

While Castro, who debuted with the Blue Jays in 2015 but still has two years of arbitration eligibility remaining, got rather mediocre results in 2019 (4.66 ERA, 4.73 FIP in 73.1 innings), this year, he’s pitched markedly better (4.02 ERA, 3.71 FIP in 15.2 innings). His strikeout rate has spiked from 22.3% to 34.3%, while his walk rate has fallen from 12.8% to 7.1%; as a result, his K-BB% has nearly tripled, from 9.4% to 27.2%. His home run rate has climbed from 1.23 per nine to 1.72, but at the same time, his batted ball profile has taken on a different shape — harder contact but more grounders, and a ridiculous HR/FB rate:

Read the rest of this entry »

After their huge seven-player swap on Sunday night, the Padres and Mariners returned to the same well and struck a smaller deal in the waning minutes before the trade deadline. Taylor Williams is headed to San Diego to join his former bullpen-mates Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla, while the Mariners receive a player to be named later — though the player has already reportedly been named: right-hander Matt Brash. The framework of the Williams deal was established during the negotiations for the bigger trade, but the trigger didn’t get pulled until just before the 4pm EST deadline.

Even though they had acquired Trevor Rosenthal, Adams, and Altavilla in the last few days, the Padres were still looking to improve their bullpen. The health of Adams’ knee is still a question mark and the inconsistent Altavilla is more of a work-in-progress than a sure-thing. In Williams, the Padres get a reliever who can contribute right away. He had been the Mariners de facto closer for much of this season and had shown some promise as a high leverage reliever. He had pushed his strikeout rate over 30% this season and lowered his FIP to 3.50. But he doesn’t come without a few warts. His command leaves a lot to be desired as he’s been prone to overthrowing in particularly stressful situations.

The biggest driver of Williams’ success this year has been an increased reliance on his wicked slider. He’s now throwing his breaking ball more than ever and it’s been extremely effective for him. Opposing batters are whiffing almost 50% of the time they offer at the pitch. What’s even more encouraging is he’s using it more often earlier in counts to steal called strikes while still burying it for whiffs with two strikes. Read the rest of this entry »

A .441 winning percentage and fourth place in one’s division on the day of the trade deadline aren’t typical characteristics of a buying team, but 2020 is anything but a typical season. Even after a disappointing 15-19 start, the Cincinnati Reds are just 1 1/2 games out of a playoff spot. Considering the number of moves the team had already made in an effort to make this a contending season, that’s a gap the organization thought was worth trying to close with a pair of deals completed just ahead of Monday’s 4:00 pm deadline.

The Reds acquired outfielder Brian Goodwin from the Angels and closer Archie Bradley from the Diamondbacks within just a few minutes of each other on Monday, with the list of total exits and entrances appearing as follows:

• Reds get: RHP Archie Bradley and OF Brian Goodwin
• Diamondbacks get: INF Josh VanMeter and OF Stuart Fairchild
• Angels get: LHP Packy Naughton, and PTBNL or cash

We’ll start with Bradley, as he’s likely to have the biggest impact considering Cincinnati’s relief woes. The Reds’ bullpen has been a far cry from their stellar starting rotation this season, allowing the fourth-worst ERA and fifth-worst FIP in the majors. The unit hasn’t had any trouble striking out batters, leading the majors with 11.9 strikeouts per nine, but it has allowed opponents to rack up walks and homers with similar frequency — only four teams have a higher walk rate in their bullpens than Cincinnati’s, and only the Phillies have a higher home run rate. Read the rest of this entry »

For the Toronto Blue Jays, it had already been a busy deadline day. In the dying moments of the trade deadline, they made one last move, acquiring Ross Stripling from the Dodgers:

The Los Angeles Dodgers have traded RHP Ross Stripling to the Toronto Blue Jays for two players to be named later.

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) August 31, 2020

Stripling has had a rough go of it so far this year. He’s posted his lowest strikeout rate, highest walk rate, and lowest groundball rate, all while allowing his highest rate of home runs per fly ball. That’s about as terrible as it sounds; it’s good for a 7.23 FIP, tied with fellow Blue Jays acquisition Robbie Ray for the worst such mark among pitchers who have thrown at least 30 innings this year.

The Dodgers are flush with pitching depth — Tony Gonsolin’s solid start was likely to force Stripling out of the rotation, and he was more or less a luxury in relief. They’d already tried to trade him once this year, only to have the Angels back out of the deal. Toronto, on the other hand, was starting Hyun-Jin Ryu, three ham sandwiches, and a near-mint condition Juan Guzman rookie card before their recent acquisition spree. The fit is obvious.

Stripling’s sluggish start this year defies easy analysis. The most startling statistic is his sudden inability to strike out right-handed batters. He’s running only a 14.1% strikeout rate against them, as compared to 22.7% before this year. The culprit appears to be two-fold: righties are swinging less at his curveball, previously a go-to out pitch, and missing less often when they swing at his fastball.

That fastball used to be an analytical darling, not quite the pure backspin ideal but not far from it. It’s lost a bit of vertical movement and gained fade, while his curveball has done the opposite: it now falls more but with less glove-side break. It’s a frustrating development for someone who relies on those two pitches mirroring each other.

If that feels to you like a tiny change for such a calamitous fall in results, all I can say is that I agree with you. He’s simply looked a little bit off on the mound this year, right down to an inconsistent release point; he’s released two thirds of his fastballs further to the first-base side of the mound than any fastball he threw in 2019. Here are his 2019 release points:

And 2020:

The Jays are betting that this is just a blip, or that they can fix him if it isn’t. I think that’s a reasonable move, particularly if the two players to be named later they’re surrendering are long shots. Stripling joins Robbie Ray and Taijuan Walker as new starters, displacing either Tanner Roark or Chase Anderson — unless he moves back into the swingman role where he excelled in Los Angeles. Either way, if he returns to anything like his prior form, he’ll be a key contributor for a team on the postseason bubble.

As for the Dodgers, they’ll be fine. They’d been looking to move Stripling for some time, likely to duck below the luxury tax line. With Mookie Betts signing an extension, they’ll probably do that tax line dance again in 2021, which means Stripling was going to be non-tendered or traded given the pipeline of not-yet-arb-eligible pitching coming up behind him. Given his rough recent form, he might not have made their postseason roster, so the decision to get something in return looks reasonable. But if the Jays fix him, or if he simply fixes himself, they might have found a complement to Ryu atop their rotation for years to come. It’s a smart risk by Toronto and a cost-saving move by Los Angeles.

The Phillies’ bullpen has been lit for an astronomical 7.01 ERA thus far, and over the past two weeks, general manager Matt Klentak has been busy trying to bolster it. On Monday, as the trade deadline approached, the team made another move, acquiring righty David Phelps from the Brewers in exchange for a trio of players to be named later. The move reunites Phelps with manager Joe Girardi, under whom he pitched for the Yankees from 2012-14 while earning the exceptionally creative nickname “Phelpsie.”

The 33-year-old Phelps, who signed a $1.5 million one-year deal in January, put up a 2.77 ERA and 2.75 FIP in 13 innings while posting eye-opening strikeout and walk rates (41.7% and 4.2%, respectively). Per Pitch Info, Phelps’ four-seam fastball has ticked upwards in velocity, and he’s been emboldened to work upstairs with it.

After averaging 92.8 mph with his four-seamer last year, which he split between the Blue Jays and Cubs while posting a 3.41 ERA and 4.58 FIP in 34.1 innings, Phelps is averaging 94.6 mph this year. He’s actually throwing it less, and using his sinker and cutter more frequently, with the former picking up steam as well:

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Two years makes a tradition: it’s now a ritual for the Marlins and Diamondbacks to make an intriguing trade leading up to the deadline. Last year it was Zac Gallen for Jazz Chisholm, and this year the Marlins are acquiring Starling Marte:

Caleb Smith, Humberto Mejia and one other from the Marlins to DBacks for Starling Marte, source tells The Athletic.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 31, 2020

When the Diamondbacks traded for Marte this offseason, they did so for two reasons. First, they wanted to make the playoffs. That one hasn’t gone according to plan; after starting 3-8, they briefly righted the ship at 13-11 but have since gone on a cold streak. They entered today at 14-21 and only a 9.9% chance of reaching the postseason per our playoff odds. Short seasons are tough: a cold spell can upset the best-laid plans.

The Marlins, on the other hand, came into the year as playoff longshots. After a surprising run following their COVID-induced layoff, however, they’re 14-15 and are currently in playoff position. We still don’t like their odds — we give them a 22.7% chance of holding onto a spot — but that’s the best shot at playing October baseball they’ve had in years, and Marte will help immediately.

But that’s not the only reason the Diamondbacks traded for Marte. He still has a club option for one more year at $10.5 million (it’s $12.5 million but with a $2 million buyout) after signing an extension with the Pirates. That made him more than a one-year rental; two years of above-average center field play for reasonable rates is an enticing package.
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