One thing I love about writing for FanGraphs is getting the chance to cover players who otherwise would receive little (if any) attention from sources outside of their own team’s market. On this little part of the internet, pieces about the Joe Blows of the league aren’t just allowed, they’re encouraged. Yet, almost 10 years ago, the great Jeff Sullivan hemmed and hawed before writing about one such player:

For a while, I’ve personally been interested in Tyler Clippard. I’ve considered on several occasions writing about him, and about him specifically, but on every one of those occasions, I’ve talked myself out of it, because it just never seemed relevant enough. Generally, people haven’t woken up and thought, today I’d like to read in depth about Tyler Clippard.

I get what Jeff meant. I felt the same way before I wrote this article, hence this introduction. Still, it’s a funny train of thought coming from a writer who was so well known for making his readers care about topics they didn’t realize they would have cared about until they started reading. There was no need for Jeff to justify the subject matter of his article, least of all at FanGraphs. It’s also funny because Clippard was coming off an All-Star season in which he pitched to a 2.18 ERA and 1.5 WAR in 75 games. He had been one of the best relievers in baseball for the past five years. Clearly, the landscape of baseball blogging has changed over the past decade; a player with Clippard’s resume wouldn’t even qualify as a niche topic anymore. Indeed, Clippard might as well be a Shohei Ohtani-level mega-star compared to the reliever I’m writing about today. Read the rest of this entry »

At the trade deadline, all fans are equal. No matter their age, location, partisan commitments, gender, religion, emotional disposition, or level of statistical curiosity, they have one thought: “Man, our bullpen stinks. Our GM really needs to do something about it.”

By and large, the GMs agree. That’s why a quick survey reveals that roughly a bajillion pitchers got traded this deadline season. OK, it’s not that many. Between July 1 and July 30 this year, I counted 44 major league pitchers who were traded to a playoff contender. For transparency’s sake, I judged “major league pitcher” subjectively. Some of these trades amount to one team sending the other a Low-A no-hoper or a bag of cash in order to jump the waiver line for a guy they like. And then the team in question waives the guy they traded for three weeks later.

In short, I love you, Tyler Jay, and we’ll always have that killer Big Ten regular season in 2015, but you don’t count as a major league pitcher for the purposes of this experiment. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. I’m going to keep the introduction short and sweet today so I can get back to my once-annual guilty pleasure: spending all day watching the US Open. But while I’m going full Jimmy Butler, plenty of baseball is happening, so I’ve got my eyes on that as well. You couldn’t watch a game this week without seeing something spectacular. We’ve got great baserunning, awful baserunning, and phenomenal catches. We’ve got teams misunderstanding risk and reward, and GMs touching hot stoves over and over again. It’s a great week to watch baseball, because it always is. Shout out to Zach Lowe of ESPN as always for the column idea, and one programming note: Five Things will be off next Friday. Let’s get to the baseball!

1. Anthony Volpe’s Disruptive Speed
Another year, another below-average season with the bat for the Yankees shortstop. That’s turning him into a lightning rod for controversy, because he’s a type of player who often gets overlooked (defense and speed) playing for a team where players often get overrated. The combination of the two leads to some confusing opinions. “He’s a good player who will make fewer All-Star teams than you think because defensive value is consistently underappreciated” isn’t exactly a strong argument if you’re talking to an acquaintance at a sports bar.

One thing that everyone can agree on, though: After he reaches base, Anthony Volpe is a problem. I tuned into Monday’s Nationals-Yankees game to see Dylan Crews in the majors and to watch Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, but I ended up just marveling at Volpe for a lot of the afternoon. He got on base three times (that’s the hard part for him, to be clear) and tilted the entire defense each time. He wasn’t even going on this play, and his vault lead still dragged Ildemaro Vargas out of position:

I’m not quite sure how to assign value for that play. The ball found a hole there, but DJ LeMahieu could just as easily have hit the ball straight to Vargas. I’m not saying that we need an advanced statistical reckoning about the value of a runner bluffing a fielder into motion, but that doesn’t change how cool it is to watch Volpe spook good veteran infielders just by standing around and bouncing.

Some of his baserunning value is of the straightforward, look-at-this-fast-human-being variety. You don’t need to hit the ball very deep to drive him home from third:

Some of the value is effort-based. Volpe’s always thinking about an extra base. Even when he hits a clean single, he’s got eyes on the play. An innocuous outfield bobble? He’ll take the base, thank you very much:

Of course, if you show someone taking a bouncing lead in the first GIF, you have to show them stealing a base in the fourth: Call it Volpe’s Run. That double led to a pitching change, and after two looks at Joe La Sorsa’s delivery, Volpe helped himself to third base:

Not every game is like this, but most of his times on base are. He’s never content to go station to station. His instincts are finely tuned, his speed blazing. I’m rooting for Volpe to improve at the plate, and it’s for selfish reasons: I love to watch great baserunning, and I want to see him get more chances to do it.

2. Whatever the Opposite of That Is

Oh Washington. The Nats are near the top of my watch list right now. Their assortment of young offensive standouts makes for fun games, and now that Crews has debuted, the top of their lineup looks legitimately excellent. You can see the future of the team even before they’re ready to contend, and that’s just cool. They might even be good already – they won the series against the Yankees this week, with Crews hitting his first big league homer in the deciding game. But uh, they’re not quite ready for prime time yet. Take a look at this laser beam double:

Boy, it sure looks fun to pour on the runs when you’re already winning. Wait, I misspoke. Take a look at this long fielder’s choice:

Somehow, Joey Gallo didn’t score on a jog on that one. He slammed on the brakes at third base and realized he couldn’t make it home. Then he got hung out to dry because everyone else in the play kept running like it was a clear double (it was). What a goof! That meant the only question was whether he’d be able to hold the rundown long enough to let everyone advance a base. The answer was a resounding yes – to everyone other than Juan Yepez:

I think his brain just short circuited there. He was standing on third with Gallo completely caught in a rundown. All you have to do to finish the play is stand still. But for whatever reason, he started side-shuffling in retreat toward second, another base currently occupied by a runner (!). While Jazz Chisholm Jr. tagged Gallo out, Yepez was busy hanging José Tena out to dry. Famously, you can’t have two runners on the same base. The rest of the play was academic:

I feel bad hanging Yepez out to dry, because some clearer communication would have made this play a run-scoring double. First, Gallo was overly cautious tagging up on the deep drive to center. Then, he got bamboozled. Watch the base coach hold Yepez, only for Gallo to see the sign and think it was intended for him:

Just a disaster all around. I can’t get enough of the Gameday description: “José Tena singles on a sharp line drive to center fielder Aaron Judge. Juan Yepez to 3rd. José Tena lines into a double play, center fielder Aaron Judge to shortstop Anthony Volpe to catcher Austin Wells to first baseman DJ LeMahieu to catcher Austin Wells to third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second baseman Gleyber Torres. Joey Gallo out at home. Juan Yepez to 3rd. José Tena out at 2nd. Two Outs.”

Ah, yes, just your typical 8-6-2-3-2-5-4 double play. The Nationals are a lot of fun to watch – even when it’s at their expense.

3. We Get It, Rays

The whole never-trade-with-Tampa-Bay bit is overdone. The Rays lose plenty of trades. They win their fair share too, of course, but they are high volume operators in a business full of uncertainty. Sometimes, you get Isaac Paredes for almost nothing. Sometimes, you get Jonny DeLuca. When you churn your roster to the extent that they do, you can’t win them all, and that’s fine. But the Cardinals? Yeah, they should definitely not trade with the Rays.

First, in 2018, they sent Tommy Pham to Tampa Bay in exchange for some depth prospects, and Pham racked up 8 WAR in the next year and a half with the Rays. Then, before the 2020 season, the Cardinals swapped Randy Arozarena for Matthew Liberatore; Randy became the face of the postseason, and Libby turned into a long reliever. The most recent deal might not be the most damaging, but it’s an apt capper to a transaction trilogy.

Dylan Carlson was supposed to be the next big thing in St. Louis, but that ship had sailed long before the Cardinals jettisoned him at the deadline this year. His offensive game just broke down out of nowhere over the last two years, and he played himself out of St. Louis even as the team floundered for outfield depth this year. He had a 50 wRC+ in a part-time role when the team decided it was time to move on.

That’s fine, guys need changes of scenery all the time. But trading him to the Rays, of all teams, felt a little on the nose. The reliever they got back, Shawn Armstrong, is a perfectly good bullpen option. He made 11 appearances for the Redbirds and compiled a 2.84 ERA (2.78 FIP), a solid month’s work. But I’m using the past tense because they designated him for assignment earlier this week, hoping another team would pick up the balance of his contract and save them $350,000 or so. They’ve made a similar move with Pham, whom they also acquired at the deadline, since then. In Armstrong’s case, they also did it because he’d pitched two days in a row and they needed another fresh arm on the active roster; it was a messy situation all around.

We have their postseason odds at 1.1% after a desultory August, and they likely aren’t losing much of that value by moving on from Armstrong. It’s the signaling of it all, though: They traded for the guy, got exactly what they wanted from him, and still couldn’t keep him around for two months. Meanwhile, Carlson looks like a reasonable major leaguer again. He hasn’t been a world beater by any means, but he’s hitting the ball hard more frequently in a semi-platoon role that takes advantage of his ability to hit lefties. He already has three homers as a Ray after none all year as a Cardinal.

Carlson had to go, because something wasn’t working in St. Louis. Armstrong was a perfectly reasonable return, and he did exactly what the team hoped for when the Cardinals acquired him. The optics, though! They traded yet another pretty good outfielder who didn’t fit into the puzzle in St. Louis. Tampa Bay has two years to get the most out of him. As is customary, none of the players the Rays sent back to Missouri moved the needle. For appearances’ sake, if nothing else, the Cardinals can’t keep making these trades.

4. Outrageous Robberies

It feels weird that Jackson Chourio, a five-tool superstar with blazing footspeed, doesn’t play center. It seems like a knock on him, almost. Sure, this guy’s a prodigy, but he can’t handle the tough defensive position that you might expect him to play given his talent. Except, that’s not quite right. Why would you play him in center field when you currently have Spider-Man patrolling the grass? I mean…

Blake Perkins robs ANOTHER home run! ? pic.twitter.com/vvEn9GVR7V

— MLB (@MLB) August 28, 2024

Oh my goodness. I don’t even want to hear about catch probability on this one, because the difficulty of this play is the part where he gets over the wall in deep center. This isn’t one of those “robberies” where the fielder grazes the wall with his back and everyone celebrates. Blake Perkins can do those just fine – he has four robberies this year, and they weren’t all this hard – but he can also go the extra mile. He went all the way up and over to get this one:

That’s an 8-foot wall, so he probably got to the ball 9 or so feet in the air. He had to cover a ton of ground before getting there; 101 feet from his initial position, to be precise. He took a great route, which gave him time to decelerate and time the jump, but the ball kept carrying. In the end, he had to parkour up the wall a little bit to get enough height:

What more can I say? You can’t do it any better than that. Perkins reacted like he was shocked by his own play:

So no sweat, Jackson. You’re a pretty good outfielder too; you just can’t climb walls quite so nimbly. There’s no shame in second place when first place looks like that.

5. Getting by With a Little Help

Austin Riley is on the IL right now, and 2024 has been a down year for him. That’s largely an offensive issue, though his defense isn’t quite up to previous years’ standards, either. That said, he can still turn an absolute gem out there. Take a look at this beauty from two weeks ago:

That’s the area where he’s improved the most. His arm is below average for third base, so he compensates by getting his feet planted and putting his entire body into the throw. That ball had to travel forever, and to be fair, it two-hopped Matt Olson, but that’s an accurate ball given where he caught it and how quickly he had to let it go. That’s very nice, but watch Jo Adell at the bag. What is he doing?!? That isn’t how you’re supposed to run out a bang-bang play. If he went straight in, he’d beat the throw comfortably. Instead, he curled his way into an out.

In his mind, I’m sure that ball was a double right out of the box. That’s reasonable! Look at where Riley made the play:

Riley’s plant foot ended up all the way into the grass in foul territory. Not many baseballs get fielded there, and Adell hit that one on a line, so when he started out of the box, he was surely considering his options in regards to second base. He came out of the box looking down the line and taking a direct, rather than rounded, route. But as you can see from the high angle replay, he started to bend his path to cut the bag and head for second, right around the same time that Riley rose and fired:

The closeup of Adell is definitely a bad look:

But take another look at those last two shots and you’ll get a better idea of what happened. Adell probably couldn’t see the ball in the corner cleanly. There was a lot of traffic: baserunners, umpires, Riley himself, the pitcher, and so on. About halfway down the baseline, he looked away from the play to pick up first base coach Bo Porter, exactly what you should do when you can’t find the ball on your own. But Porter just plain missed it. He was pinwheeling Adell toward second, imploring him to arc out for extra speed. He clearly thought the ball was in the outfield and that Adell going wide could give him a shot at an extra base.

I’d put more blame on Porter than on Adell in this situation, but there’s blame to go around for both. I’d give credit to Riley, too, of course. Base coaches and baserunners make mistakes sometimes, and they aren’t always punished by outstanding defensive plays like that. But this is an unforgivable mistake given the game situation.

Adell’s run was far less important than the two in front of him. If there was any question at all about his being safe or not, any question about whether Riley had fielded it, the correct play was to book it to first and completely forget about the double. Reaching first safely is worth more than a run: the runner scoring from third plus the first and third situation that would’ve result from it. Teams have scored 0.52 runs after first and third with two outs this year, and 0.59 runs after second and third with two outs. Meaning, if Adell had taken a straight line path, the Angels would’ve scored a run and had that 0.52 on top of it, so making an out at first base cost them an expected 1.52 runs. Advancing to second would have gained them another 0.07 expected runs, but only if that runner on third scored, which didn’t happen because Adell was out at first. They would’ve needed to successfully advance to second 96 times out of 100 to make the math work there. It’s worse than that, though: Going from a one-run lead to a two-run lead is worth astronomically more than stepping up from two to three. Take that into account, and we’re looking at a play where you’d need to be right 98 times out of 100.

The Angels mistook playing hard for playing smart. The winning baseball play there is to ensure the run. It didn’t end up costing them, but it could have. They never scored again, and the Braves put plenty of traffic on the bases the rest of the way. The funny thing is, I’m sure that Adell will get knocked for not hustling on this play, and I don’t think that’s what went wrong. He and Porter just got greedy aiming for a hustle double when the right choice was to nit it up (play extremely conservatively, for the non-poker-players out there). It’s a strange way to make a mistake – but it’s definitely still a mistake.

If you checked the standings on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, you may have noticed something rather novel: The Royals were tied for first place atop the AL Central, depriving the Guardians of sole possession for the first time since April 13. The moment was fleeting, because on Wednesday afternoon Kansas City lost to Cleveland after taking the first three games of the series. Nonetheless, the team has been the AL’s hottest over the past two months, is currently positioned to end its nine-year postseason drought, and has a very real shot at capturing the division title.

The Royals have been above .500 since April 6, and they’ve had just one calendar month with a losing record (12-15 in June). They were 18-13 in March and April, 17-11 in May, 13-10 in July, and are 15-10 in August. A dreadful 4-12 stretch knocked them 10 games behind the Guardians as of June 25, but they’ve gone an AL-best 32-21 (.604) since, half a game ahead of the Astros (32-22). This team is for real.

After allowing 11 runs to the Phillies in back-to-back games over the weekend — the first of which happened after Kansas City pulled within a game of the Guardians in the standings — the Royals rolled into Cleveland and swept a doubleheader on Monday, overcoming early deficits in both games. Down 2-0 in the opener, MJ Melendez’s three-run homer and Bobby Witt Jr.’s solo shot powered the Royals to a 4-3 win, and after Alec Marsh surrendered three first-inning runs (two unearned) in the nightcap, they chipped away, with Salvador Perez breaking a 4-4 tie with a solo home run in the fifth and then hitting a grand slam in the sixth, keying a 9-4 win. On Tuesday night, after starter Michael Lorenzen exited the game in the second inning due to a left hamstring strain, five relievers held the Guardians to a total of two hits and one run over 7 1/3 innings, and trade deadline acquisition Paul DeJong clubbed his fifth homer in 19 games en route to a 6-1 win. Alas, on Wednesday the Royals carried a 5-2 lead into the seventh, but starter Michael Wacha and the bullpen faltered, yielding four runs in what became a 7-5 defeat. Read the rest of this entry »

Nobody throws curveballs anymore. They’re old hat, as Michael Baumann just got done telling you. They don’t fit modern pitch design. Sliders do all the things that curveballs do, and mostly better. Look at the league changing right in front of our eyes:

There’s nothing particularly odd about this change. Sliders, of both the sweeping and tight variety, get better results. Even as they’ve exploded in popularity, even as more and more pitchers have added mediocre sweepers to broaden their arsenals, the numbers speak for themselves. Sliders have been more valuable than the average pitch this year. Curveballs have been less valuable than the average pitch. Sliders seem easier to teach, too, at least anecdotally. You don’t hear about a lot of pitching factories turning guys into Charlie Morton, but seemingly every child in America learns a sweeper these days. Read the rest of this entry »

Garrett Crochet has been overpowering hitters in his first season as a major league starting pitcher. In 27 outings comprising 128 2/3 innings — the woebegone White Sox have been especially cautious with his workload since the All-Star break — the 25-year-old southpaw has a 34.2% strikeout rate to go with a 3.64 ERA and a 2.83 FIP. Relying heavily on a four-seamer/cutter combination that’s augmented by a sweeper and the occasional changeup, Crochet ranks in the 92nd percentile for fastball velocity at 97.1 mph, and in the 93rd percentile for whiff rate at 32.9%.

Crochet sat down to discuss his repertoire and approach prior to a recent game at Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field.

———

David Laurila: Most fans are familiar with you as a pitcher. That said, how would you describe yourself?

Garrett Crochet: “I guess I think of myself as a power pitcher. I pretty much rely on two pitches, although I would like to maybe open the floor a little bit more for [additional] usage of the slider and changeup. Some outings call for that more than others, but to be honest, I haven’t gotten many reps with my changeup. It’s been difficult for me to incorporate that pitch very much in a year where I’m relying pretty much solely on efficiency. It’s been about not wanting to waste pitches. That’s why it came down to me using the fastball and the cutter primarily.” Read the rest of this entry »

One of the great things about sports is they let you witness the very limits of human capabilities. If you watch for long enough, you’ll see those limits get pushed even further. Usually it happens in increments so small and slow as to be all but imperceptible, but every once in a while someone comes along and stretches them right in front of your eyes. Never in his wildest dreams could James Naismith have imagined that a person like Victor Wembanyana was capable of existing, let alone of splashing threes and slashing to the hoop like a guard. If he had, he would have nailed his peach baskets a whole lot higher than 10 feet.

Oneil Cruz was a Lilliputian 6-foot-3 when he signed with the Dodgers as a 16-year-old shortstop in 2015. Despite adding another four inches to his frame, he managed to hang onto that position by his fingernails for nine more years, attempting valiantly to blow the doors off our preconceptions about what a shortstop could look like. He did his level best to make up for every errant throw with a rocket from deep in the hole, every routine grounder that clanked off his glove with a circus catch in the no-man’s land behind third base. Sadly, our preconceptions have outlasted his onslaught. The Pirates have finally decided that they no longer desire the distinction of fielding the tallest regular shortstop in the history of the game.

On Monday – just eight days after general manager Ben Cherington told reporters, “All I can tell you right now is he is our shortstop,” – manager Derek Shelton announced that Cruz would be transitioning to center field. “I think as of right now, we’re looking at him as a center fielder,” Shelton said. “It’s something we’ve been talking about. It’s not something that we took lightly. He’s an unbelievable athlete. We feel it’s probably the best position for him and for the Pirates.” Cherington told reporters that Cruz was disappointed about the move, but handled it professionally. On Tuesday, Cruz walked the same line with the media, saying through an interpreter, “I see it this way: I’m going to be playing in the middle of the diamond still, [but] in the outfield, and all I have to do is just erase it from my mind that I was a shortstop and do my best out there as a center fielder.” Either Cruz is truly broken up about moving off the position he’s played his entire life or he just watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

It’s not as if the Pirates are clearing room for some young shortstop who’s bucking for a promotion. In fact, when Eric Longenhagen and Travis Ice updated the Pirates’ top prospects list, only one shortstop was above Single-A: the 35th-ranked Tsung-Che Cheng, who’s currently at Double-A with a 35+ future value. The Pirates are choosing to leave a real hole at shortstop going forward, and generally speaking, it’s harder to fill a hole at shortstop than in center.

Aside from six spring training innings in 2021, Cruz had never played center. His official outfield experience consisted of 81 innings in left field, 80 of them in the minors. Cruz spent two days as a designated hitter while he got a crash course on the new position. He was the first player out of the clubhouse on Tuesday, shagging fly balls in center before the game.

Oneil Cruz gets some work out in center field at PNC Park: pic.twitter.com/FW2gEs0EBa

— Danny Demilio (@Demilio22) August 27, 2024

On Wednesday, there he was in center field, and as the saying goes, the ball finds you. Ian Happ laced the first pitch of the game into the left field gap for a double, forcing Cruz to glide to his right and cut it off. In all, the Cubs hit nine balls to center, the second most the Pirates have allowed all season. When Cruz made his first catch, on a towering fly ball off the bat of Cody Bellinger, he jokingly signaled to the dugout that he wanted to keep it as a souvenir.

In a development that will not surprise you at all, Cruz also committed an error, though it’s hard to blame him for this one. With Nico Hoerner on second in the top of the second inning, Pete Crow-Armstrong sent a line drive single into center. Cruz charged and fielded it on a hop, then unleashed a 103.3-mph throw home. The ball came in just a few feet up the third base line and bounced roughly 12 feet in front of the plate, giving catcher Yasmani Grandal a pretty friendly hop. However, Hoerner was running hard all the way and the throw wasn’t quite in time. Grandal made a desperate attempt to catch it and apply a sweeping tag all in one motion, and when he failed, the ball squirted past him, allowing Crow-Armstrong to advance to third.

That was Cruz’s second throw of the game, and it was the second-fastest throw any outfielder has made over the entire 2024 season. It was exactly kind of play that made the idea of Cruz as a center fielder so enticing, and he executed it flawlessly. Of course it ended up as an error. Chalk it up to the morbid humor of the baseball gods.

It makes sense to let Cruz get his feet wet over the last month of the season. In order to make it happen, the Pirates recently placed Michael A. Taylor, an excellent center fielder who is having arguably the best defensive season of his career, on waivers. The plan is to play the versatile Isiah Kiner-Falefa at short once second baseman Nick Gonzales returns from the IL. At TribLive, Tim Benz advanced the hypothesis that the Pirates really plan on moving Cruz to right field, and are simply starting him out at the premier outfield position now in order to cushion the blow. “Then,” he wrote, “when it’s clear that’s not working out after a few bumpy weeks during meaningless September games… down in the wind and sun of Bradenton next spring, they’ll broach the topic of moving him over to right field.”

Cruz has now made 25 errors this season, second most in baseball, and his .939 fielding percentage is the worst among all qualified players. If you’ve watched Cruz play, you’ve seen a whole lot of throwing errors, especially when he’s moving to his left, but you’ve also seen a lot of dropped popups. Rather than getting into position, he has a tendency to drift with the ball, then he’ll misplay it because he ends up fielding it at an odd angle, finds himself on a collision course with the neighbor whose territory he has unknowingly entered, or both.

Watching such plays, it’s hard to come away thinking that Cruz needs to be playing in the outfield. Benz takes that concern a step further, writing:

The issues that are present with Cruz at shortstop will just manifest themselves in different ways in the outfield. Instead of loading up to break the Statcast numbers with a 100 mph throw from shortstop that sails wide of the first baseman, he’ll throw one 100 mph from the outfield that misses a cutoff man.

Instead of running out to left field and banging into [Bryan] Reynolds from the infield dirt, he’ll come screaming in from the outfield on a pop-up and crash into Nick Gonzales behind second base.

Instead of rushing a double-play attempt at second base and having the ball go off his glove, he’ll boot a grounder rolling into the outfield as he is attempting to scoop and throw on the run.

If the Pirates could properly coach Cruz, they’d coach him to be better at his natural position. Now, we are supposed to expect that he is going to be morphed into a capable outfielder at the most difficult spot in the middle of his career?

While the point Benz makes is a reasonable one, it’s worth remembering that at this point in his career, Cruz is still just 25. I do think it’s more likely that he’ll be fine in center, and possibly even great. Quite simply, there’s more margin for error in the outfield. He’ll take some bad routes and make some bad reads, but he’ll be able to make the most of his speed, and as we saw on Wednesday, when he has the chance to come in on the ball and put all his weight into a throw, he’ll no doubt put up the kind of radar gun readings that get the Statcast team all hot and bothered. That said, I’m not as interested about who Cruz will be as an outfielder. I care more about who he was as a shortstop.

This isn’t strictly on topic, but let me tell you a secret: Giancarlo Stanton might lead the league in bat speed and fast swing rate, but no player has taken more swings at or above 85 mph than Cruz. When I looked closely at the bat tracking data, accounting for factors like height, pitch type, and swing length, I came away with the impression that Cruz could swing harder if he wanted to; that having the second-fastest average bat speed in all of baseball was the result of a conscious decision to throttle back his aggression some. My point is that calling Oneil Cruz a gifted athlete is a bit like calling an aircraft carrier a big boat. You’re technically right, but you’re still leaving your listener woefully unprepared for the reality of the situation. To some extent, he needs to be seen to be believed.

Watching the 6-foot-7 Cruz straighten up to his full height and unleash a laser from deep in the hole was a transcendent experience, but it wasn’t the most fun part of watching him man the six. The most fun part was simply sitting there and seeing him creep toward the plate before the pitch, so much bigger – not just taller, but bigger – than all the other enormous professional athletes on the field that it felt like your eyes weren’t focusing correctly, like someone painted a perfect photorealistic painting but forgot how foreshortening is supposed to work.

Even his errors, of which there were many, served at least in part to emphasize his gifts. Regardless of what I wrote about his problems with popups, it requires an absurd amount of speed and confidence to end up far enough into left field to have a chance at this ball in the first place. His long strides make it seem like there’s nothing he can’t reach, because the dimensions of the field were set in place long before anyone had contemplated the possibility of Oneil Cruz playing shortstop.

More than a few of his throwing errors were the result of throwing the ball so hard that the first baseman simply didn’t have enough time to catch the ball. There’s no way to check this, but Cruz was almost certainly the most frequent victim of what MLB.com’s Film Room calls “missed catch errors.” His low throws came so quickly that the first baseman didn’t have time to figure out the right angle for a scoop. Here he is handcuffing Connor Joe on a ball in the dirt.

A better shortstop probably turns this into an easy play by charging in and fielding it on the short hop, but Cruz hangs back for a big, juicy hop because he knows he’s got a bazooka in his back pocket. Once that decision has been made, a good throw gets the runner, but only if you can throw the ball as hard as Cruz can. He only gets dinged for an error because he was able to get enough on the ball to beat the runner to the bag in the first place.

Then there was the time he threw the ball so hard that he knocked Rowdy Tellez’s glove clean off. The throw was undeniably high, but how often do you see a major league first baseman literally get his glove knocked off his hand?

Watching Cruz play shortstop was a gift, and one that was all the more precious because we knew all along that might be snatched away from us. His run was equal parts electrifying, exasperating, and improbable. While it’s not his natural position, Cruz will make much more sense as a center fielder. He’ll still make his share of incredible-for-both-good-reasons-and-bad plays, but he’ll no longer break your brain while he does so. For now, at least, the possibilities of baseball have shrunk.

I was contemplating Astros right-hander Hunter Brown the other day — I imagine this is a topic many of you contemplate regularly as well — and when I looked at his Baseball Savant page, I found myself a little nonplussed:

Brown is one of those pitchers who throws three fastballs; his exciting midseason turnaround owes much to the addition of a sinker. But wow, he’s thrown a lot of fastballs to left-handed hitters, hasn’t he? Read the rest of this entry »

Direct Links (Please see full job postings below):

Senior Data Scientist
Data Scientist

Senior Data Scientist, Baseball Analytics

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Summary:
The New York Mets are seeking a Senior Data Scientist in Baseball Analytics. The Senior Data Scientist will build, test, and present statistical models that inform decision-making in all facets of Baseball Operations. This position requires strong background in complex statistics and data analytics, as well as the ability to communicate statistical model details and findings to both a technical and non-technical audience. Prior experience in or knowledge of baseball is a plus, but is not required.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Build statistical models to answer a wide variety of baseball-related questions affecting the operations of the organization using advanced knowledge of statistics and data analytics and exercising appropriate discretion and judgment regarding development of statistical models

• Interpret data and report conclusions drawn from their analyses

• Present model outputs in an effective way, both for technical and non-technical audiences

• Communicate well with both the Baseball Analytics team as well as other Baseball Operations personnel to understand the parameters of any particular research project

• Provide advice on the desired outputs from the data engineering team, and guidance to the Baseball Systems team on how best to present model results

• Assist with recruiting, hiring, and mentoring new analysts in the Baseball Analytics department

• Evaluate potential new data sources and technologies to determine their validity and usefulness

• Consistently analyze recent research in analytics that can help improve the modeling work done by the Baseball Analytics department

Qualifications:

• Ph.D. in statistics or a related field, or equivalent professional experience

• Strong background in a wide variety of statistical techniques

• Strong proficiency in R, Python, or similar, as well as strong proficiency in SQL

• Basic knowledge of data engineering and front-end development is a plus, for the purpose of communicating with those departments

• Strong communication skills

• Ability to work cooperatively with others, and to take control of large-scale projects with little or no daily oversight

Salary Range: $115,000 – $145,000

For technical reasons, we strongly advise to not use an .edu email address when applying. Thank you very much.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Data Scientist, Baseball Analytics

Location: Citi Field – Queens, New York

Summary:
The New York Mets are seeking a Data Scientist in Baseball Analytics. The Data Scientist will build, test, and present statistical models that inform decision-making in all facets of Baseball Operations. This position requires strong background in complex statistics and data analytics, as well as the ability to communicate statistical model details and findings to both a technical and non-technical audience. Prior experience in or knowledge of baseball is a plus, but is not required.

Qualifications:

• Masters and/or BS degree in statistics or a related field

• Professional experience in a quantitative position is a plus

• Strong background in a wide variety of statistical techniques

• Strong proficiency in R, Python, or similar, as well as strong proficiency in SQL

• Basic knowledge of data engineering and front-end development is a plus, for the purpose of communicating with those departments

• Strong communication skills

• Ability to work cooperatively with others, and to take control of large-scale projects with little or no daily oversight

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Build statistical models to answer a wide variety of baseball-related questions affecting the operations of the organization using advanced knowledge of statistics and data analytics and exercising appropriate discretion and judgment regarding development of statistical models

• Interpret data and report conclusions drawn from their analyses

• Present model outputs in an effective way, both for technical and non-technical audiences

• Communicate well with both the Baseball Analytics team as well as other Baseball Operations personnel to understand the parameters of any particular research project

• Provide advice on the desired outputs from the data engineering team, and guidance to the Baseball Systems team on how best to present model results

• Evaluate potential new data sources and technologies to determine their validity and usefulness

• Consistently analyze research in analytics that can help improve the modeling work done by the Baseball Analytics department

Salary Range: $80,000 – $110,000

For technical reasons, we strongly advise to not use an .edu email address when applying. Thank you very much.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

The content in this posting was created and provided solely by the New York Mets.

They were among the best players on the open market this past winter, four of the top seven on our Top 50 MLB Free Agents list. Blake Snell had just won his second Cy Young Award, while Jordan Montgomery had a huge October, helping the Rangers win the World Series. Cody Bellinger had proven himself healthy and productive for the first time in years, and Matt Chapman won his fourth Gold Glove. The so-called “Boras Four” were supposed to land deals in the nine-figure range, but free agency became a frigid slog. Teams found nits to pick with their past production, and luxury tax concerns limited the interest of the biggest spenders, particularly when sky-high target figures were publicly floated, leading to the understandable conclusion that agent Scott Boras had overplayed his hand. The first of them (Bellinger) didn’t agree to a contract until February 25, after camps had opened, and it took another month for the last one (Montgomery) to sign. None of their seasons has gone quite as planned, either.

When the Diamondbacks visited Boston last week, Montgomery expressed frustration with the way his free agency played out. Because his wife, McKenzie Dirr, began a dermatology residency at a Boston-area hospital last fall, a deal with the Red Sox made sense, particularly given their apparent need for starting pitching. Montgomery and Boras engaged in discussions with the Red Sox, but the 31-year-old lefty did not receive a formal offer before signing his one-year, $25 million contract with the Diamondbacks on March 29.

“I had a Zoom call with [the Red Sox], that’s really all I know. It went good,” Montgomery told the Boston Herald last week. “I don’t know, obviously Boras kind of butchered it, so I’m just trying to move on from the offseason and try to forget it.”

Montgomery’s dissatisfaction wasn’t exactly a secret given that on April 11, old friend Kiley McDaniel reported that he left the Boras Corporation to be represented by Joel Wolfe and Nick Chanock of Wasserman. But the timing of his latest comments coincided with the Diamondbacks’ decision to send him to the bullpen, as he’s been lit for a 6.44 ERA in 95 innings, and is doing more harm than good as the team tries to secure a playoff spot.

Snell, who agreed to a two-year, $62 million deal with the Giants on March 19, was bothered enough by Montgomery’s comments to publicly defend Boras. “My experience with Scott has been great,” he told The Athletic on Sunday. More:

“I’ve seen how [Montgomery] struggled, but he signed the deal that he ultimately wanted to sign,” Snell said. “He has the choice. I don’t know what other deals he was offered, but I know everything that was offered to me. It’s just sad that he thinks that way when I see Scott as a very honorable man.”

While we’ll never know exactly how negotiations progressed for this bunch, or whether they’d have been better off taking different deals, their respective performances to date are worth a look, as are the decisions that lie ahead, since their contracts have mechanisms that could lead to new addresses next year. Here are the details regarding our crowdsource estimates for their contracts as well as the basics of their actual deals. I’ll tackle their respective cases alphabetically:

Cody Bellinger

Bellinger hit an impressive .307/.356/.525 (134 wRC+) with 26 homers for the Cubs last year on the heels of two injury-wracked seasons with the Dodgers, but the question was whether he could be counted on to maintain star-level production as he entered his age-28 season. His 2023 performance far outstripped his modest Statcast numbers and was driven by particularly impressive two-strike results in the service of nearly cutting his strikeout rate in half. Given the former MVP’s upside, high-quality defense, and versatility (center field, right field, first base), he ranked third on our free agent list; Boras reportedly sought a contract worth as much as $250 million, and both Ben Clemens and our crowdsource estimates figured he’d at least secure more than half of that. While the Blue Jays were considered the favorites to sign him, and the rumor mill also connected him to the Giants, Mariners, and Yankees, he returned to the Cubs on a deal that includes $27.5 million salaries for 2024 and ’25, with a $2.5 million buyout of a player option after this season, and then another player option for $25 million for ’26, with a $5 million buyout.

Bellinger has bounced around between the aforementioned three positions and designated hitter given the presence of rookies Michael Busch and Pete Crow-Armstrong and the oblique strain of Seiya Suzuki. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to avoid the injured list himself, missing 13 days in April and May due to a rib fracture and then another 18 days in July due to a fractured left middle finger. His .269/.328/.423 (108 wRC+) slash line looks less like 2024 and more like his combined numbers from ’22 and ’23 (.258/.311/.457, 109 wRC+). His average exit velocity is down a bit, as are his other Statcast numbers, and he’s exceeded his expected stats by less:

The big difference between Bellinger’s 2023 and ’24 expected numbers — and a key driver of his fall-off — is on his fly balls:

After producing ridiculously strong numbers on his oppo flies in 2023, Bellinger isn’t hitting them as hard this year, reducing their average distance by 14 feet (from 284 to 270), and far fewer are falling in; none have gone over the fence, compared to four last year. While the average launch angle of his opposite-field flies has remained constant at 39 degrees, that of his pulled ones has increased from 35 to 38 degrees, and their average distance has dropped by 27 feet (from 341 to 314), with a reduction in homers from 16 to 10.

As for Bellinger’s strikeouts, his 15.3% rate is nearly identical to last year, but where he hit for a .281 AVG and .313 wOBA with two strikes last year, he’s fallen to .226 and .270, respectively, this year. His 1.5 WAR pales in comparison to last year’s 4.4, and is hardly has an ideal platform to seek a much larger contract. I wouldn’t be surprised if he stays put this winter in hopes of opting out after 2025, as I don’t think a .383 xSLG will convince anyone to invest $150 million.

Matt Chapman

Chapman reportedly declined a $120 million extension with the Blue Jays at some point last year. The team briefly pursued a return, and the Mariners, Cubs, and Giants were also connected to him. While all of the Boras Four fell far short of our crowd’s expectations for contract size, Chapman is the only one whose AAV came in lower as well. He’s making $18 million via a $2 million signing bonus and a $16 million salary, with a $17 million player option and $2 million buyout for ’25, an $18 million player option and $3 million buyout for ’26, and then a $20 million mutual option and $1 million buyout for ’27.

He’s also the only member of this bunch who has avoided the IL, and is the one who is having the best season. His 4.2 WAR ranks sixth in the NL, and is third among all third basemen behind only José Ramírez and Rafael Devers; it’s his highest WAR since 2019. Yet in the grand scheme, it’s hardly been an atypical season for the 31-year-old. His 118 wRC+ matches his career mark, and his .246/.333/.443 line bears a strong resemblance to last year’s .240/.330/.424, but with a bit more power; his 21-homer total so far is already four more than last season. His defense has been typically strong (11 DRS, 4 FRV, 3.1 UZR).

More notable is the arc of his season. Chapman finished 2023 in a funk, with a 54 wRC+ from August 12 onward, and he followed that by producing just an 80 wRC+ in March and April. Statcast’s bat tracking data — which places him among the game’s fastest swingers — arrived just in time to offer him some reassurance that he needed only to continue making minor adjustments instead of overhauling his mechanics or cheating on the fastball; he’s hit for a 129 wRC+ (.253/.353/.461) since. He and the Giants are reportedly engaged in “active dialogue” (Boras’ term) regarding a long-term extension, though it doesn’t appear imminent. My guess is that he opts out, and that a return could depend upon how things unfold with Snell, since signing both to nine-figure deals may be unlikely.

Jordan Montgomery

On August 2, 2022, the Yankees traded Montgomery to the Cardinals in exchange for the injured Harrison Bader because general manager Brian Cashman reportedly didn’t believe he’d be part of the postseason rotation. From the point of the trade through the end of 2023 — after another deadline trade to the Rangers — Montgomery posted the majors’ seventh-lowest ERA among qualified starters (3.17), while ranking 12th in WAR (5.6) and 13th in FIP (3.44). He capped that with a 2.90 ERA in 31 innings during the 2023 postseason, doing the heavy lifting in a pair of series-opening combined shutouts against the Rays (ALWS) and the Astros (ALDS), and chipping in 2.1 innings of emergency relief following Max Scherzer’s injury-related exit in Game 7 of the ALCS. His start against the Diamondbacks in Game 2 of the World Series was nothing special (six innings, four runs in a 9-1 rout), but it didn’t stop the team from winning its first championship.

Montgomery and Boras reportedly set their sights on topping Aaron Nola‘s seven-year, $172 million deal. In addition to the Red Sox, he was pursued to some degree by the Rangers (who were somewhat hamstrung by uncertainty over their television deal), Yankees, and Mets. The Athletic’s Jim Bowoden reported that he received two long-term offers, though neither the teams nor terms were reported. His deal with the Diamondbacks includes a $20 million vesting option for 2025 based on 10 starts, rising to $22.5 million with 18 starts and $25 million with 23 starts.

After signing, Montgomery made two starts for Arizona’s Triple-A Reno affiliate, then debuted for the Diamondbacks on April 19. Three of his first four starts were good, but his ERA has been above 6.00 since June 5. His strikeout rate has fallen from 21.4% to 15.5%, with his walk and homer rates both rising (from 6.2% to 8.3% for the former, and from 0.86 per nine to 1.14 per nine for the latter). With the recent returns of Eduardo Rodriguez and Merrill Kelly from lengthy injury-related absences, he’s been relegated to the bullpen.

Whether it’s due to the lack of a normal winter/spring buildup or the inflammation in his right knee that sidelined him for three weeks in July, the average velocity of Montgomery’s sinker is down 1.6 mph from last year (from 93.3 mph to 91.7), and the offering is getting hammered (.380 AVG/.569 SLG). His other pitches are slower and less effective as well. Per both of our pitch modeling systems, his stuff and command have both fallen off, with his botOvr falling from 52 to 45 (on the 20-80 scouting scale) and his Pitching+ falling from 96 to 95 (on a scale where 100 is average). He’s probably best served by exercising his option in hopes of producing a better springboard to free agency.

Blake Snell

Snell appeared primed to cash in on his second Cy Young and ERA title, but his career-high (and major league-high) 13.2% walk rate, inability to pitch deep into games (he’s never averaged six innings per turn in a season), and concerns about durability (he’s made more than 27 starts in two out of six full seasons, with last year’s 32 his career high) all helped to cool his market. Nonetheless, the Yankees reportedly offered six years and $150 million (topping both Ben’s and our crowdsource’s expectations), and the Astros and Angels made late runs before he signed with the Giants. His deal pays $15 million this year, with a $17 million signing bonus deferred until 2026; half of next year’s $30 million player option will be deferred until mild-2027 if he exercises it.

Injuries prevented the 31-year-old lefty from gaining momentum in the first half of the season. Despite an abbreviated spring, he debuted on April 8, but was dreadful in his first three turns, yielding 15 runs in 11.2 innings and then landing on the IL due to a left adductor strain. After two hitless rehab starts totaling nine innings, he struggled in three more big league starts in late May and June before being sidelined again due to a left groin strain. To that point, he had a 9.65 ERA and hadn’t completed five innings in a start. But after another five-inning hitless rehab start, he found a groove; four of his first five starts off the IL were scoreless, capped by his no-hitter against the Reds on August 2. He’s continued his roll, though a six-walk, three-inning effort against the Mariners on Saturday was nothing to write home about. Still, his splits are night and day relative to the period bracketed by his two IL trips:

Snell has tweaked his delivery a bit such that his horizontal and vertical release points have both decreased since the early going, as has his extension. He’s cut his slider usage from 16.5% before the second IL stint to 6.6% since, with the usage of his curve increasing from 18.9% to 32.4%. And why not, as the pitch is off the charts in terms of our modeling (from 144 to 148 in Stuff+, and from 66 to 76 in PitchingBot), though the big improvement there has been his fastball (103 to 115 in Stuff+, 56 to 68 in PitchingBot).

In other words, Snell is pitching like an ace, and so long as he stays healthy, he seems likely to test free agency again. Despite his imperfections, he’s got the highest ceiling of this group — he has the talent for a third Cy — and I’d expect him to land the biggest contract of the bunch next winter.