Archive for Teams

*Or would be, if the season ended today.

We know the Astros’ pitching staff has been absurdly dominant.

The truth is, they’re historically dominant at the moment.

Just a season after the Indians became the first team to strike out 10 batters per nine innings, set a record with a 27.5% strikeout rate, and finish with the highest pitching WAR total of all time (31.7), the Astros are a threat to top those marks.

The Astros have already recorded 11 WAR this season, while the next closest pitching staff, that of the Red Sox, has 7.9. The Astros are on pace to shatter the Indians’ WAR mark, and their 10.35 strikeouts per nine and 29.6% strikeout rate would also be records. Gerrit Cole, Charlie Morton, and Justin Verlander — who was outstanding against Wednesday — all have sub-2.00 ERAs.

(The Astros and Indians met last weekend, with the Astros taking two of three games, and Houston travels to Cleveland for a four-game series beginning Thursday. Get your popcorn ready.) Read the rest of this entry »

When the Yankees promoted Gleyber Torres in late April, they envisioned him helping them on both sides of the ball, replacing an underwhelming Ronald Torreyes/Tyler Wade platoon that was admittedly nothing more than a stopgap, a temporary solution to an infield logjam. Even so, they probably didn’t expect the kind of power outburst that Torres has provided. After going homerless in his first 12 games, the 21-year-old rookie second baseman has clubbed eight homers in his most recent 15. His total leads the team in the month of May — and that’s a team on pace to break the major-league record for home runs in a season.

Though he’s listed at 6-foot-1 and 200 pounds, Torres did not show a ton of in-game power coming up through the minors. His season high of 11 homers was set in 2016, when he was 19 years old and playing at the High-A stops of the Cubs and Yankees. To be fair, with seven homers in 55 games last year, he probably would have surpassed that total had he not torn his left UCL and required season-ending Tommy John surgery in June. The prospect hounds at Baseball America and MLB Pipeline both graded his power as a 55 (above average), with the latter suggesting 20-plus homers annually; our own Kiley McDaniel graded his raw power at 55/60 (present/future) and his game power at 40/55. The 55 is here, at the very least.

From Baseball Prospectus senior prospect writer Jarrett Seidler:

Y’all undersold Gleyber’s power because he didn’t dong a lot in bad parks while he was growing into his brick shithouse body

— Jarrett Seidler (@jaseidler) May 24, 2018

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Jose Quintana’s season is a little difficult to figure out. In three of his first four starts, he allowed 17 runs combined; in that fourth appearance, he pitched six shutout innings. Over four of his past five starts, meanwhile, he’s conceded one run total; he allowed six runs in the other.

Is he improving as the season goes on? He struck out 16 batters against 11 walks in 19.2 innings in those first four starts and struck out 29 hitters and walked 14 in 28.2 innings over the past five outings. His ERA is much lower in the latter of those two periods, but his FIP hasn’t moved a great deal, going from 5.15 to 4.37. These samples are small enough that it would be fair to conclude little to nothing had changed at all, but given his excellent track record, there has to be something to Quintana’s struggles.

A year ago at this time, there were some questions about Quintana’s trade value for the White Sox after the left-hander started slowly. Over his first 11 outings last season, Quintana had authored a 5.60 ERA and 4.40 FIP. Most of Quintana’s issues in terms of ERA stemmed from an increase in homers and a poor left-on-base percentage. After investigating Quintana’s numbers, I felt that most of Quintana’s issues were probably luck-based and unlikely to continue. Brushing off those concerns looks pretty good in hindsight, as Quintana put up a 3.30 FIP and 3.40 ERA and allowed just under one homer per nine innings the rest of the way, eventually helping a Cubs teams desperate for quality starter innings. This season, Quintana’s issues aren’t as easy to brush off.

While Quintana’s current FIP might resemble last year’s figure at roughly the same point in the season, his 4.68 FIP is nearly 20% worse than league average after accounting for the change in league and park. Additionally, there isn’t a gap in contact quality that suggests perhaps Quintana is just getting unlucky. So far, Quintana is giving up home runs because he has deserved to give up home runs. He’s striking out fewer batters than he did a year ago while his walks have gone way up. These are all bad things.

If there’s any cause for hope, it is twofold. One, Quintana has shown some flashes of being the very good pitcher he was before the season started, putting up four starts of at least six innings and zero or one run with at least five strikeouts. The second reason for optimism is that Quintana is still tinkering.

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Tuesday night, the Mariners started a game without Robinson Cano, Dee Gordon, and Nelson Cruz. I should say they also started without James Paxton, since it wasn’t his day to pitch. Eventually the Mariners ended the game without Mitch Haniger. Nevertheless, they beat the A’s in extra innings, improving to 28-19. It’s tied for the fourth-best start in franchise history, if you just focus on the first 47 games, and the Mariners own the fourth-best record in the American League. They own the sixth-best record overall. If the playoffs started today, people would be very confused, but also, the Mariners would be included, for the first time since 2001. For all intents and purposes, Ichiro Suzuki is retired. In 2001, he was a major-league rookie. This is, as you know, the longest active playoff drought out of the four major North American sports.

Cano suspension aside, the Mariners couldn’t have asked for a much better first two months. They’re on a 96.5-win pace, and it probably shouldn’t take 96 or 97 wins to make the playoffs, so there’s a little bit of built-in wiggle room. Without question, it’s good for the Mariners that they have sole possession of a wild-card slot. They’re 2.5 games ahead of the Angels. They’re 3.5 games ahead of the A’s, and they’re 5.5 games ahead of the Rays and the Blue Jays. The Twins trail six games behind. The early results are in the bag; since opening day, the Mariners have dramatically improved their position.

Yet the path to the playoffs remains narrow. With a dominant starter and a dominant closer, the Mariners would make for a challenging wild-card opponent. There’s just a lot of work to do first, before any of that even matters.

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Ned Yost took over as the manager of the Kansas City Royals on May 13, 2010. The fact that he still holds the position puts him in select company. Of the 30 current MLB managers, only five were skippering their current club at the start of the 2011 season, and only Mike Scioscia (1999) and Bruce Bochy (2006) can boast a longer tenure than can Yost.

Managerial turnover has been especially prevalent in recent years. A full third of the 30 weren’t in their current role at the start of last season, and half weren’t there on Opening Day 2016. This season alone has seen seven new faces at the helm.

In the first installment of a series — we’ll hear from a different manager each week, generally focusing on a specific subject — Yost shares his opinion on the recent influx of managerial turnover.

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Ned Yost: “Oh man, you know… I think there are a lot of reasons for it. One, you have to have a great relationship with your owner and your GM. I think that helps. We have a phenomenal relationship in Kansas City with Mr. Glass and with Dayton [Moore]. There probably could have been three or four times where Dayton could have fired me. But I think Dayton understands that’s not going to solve a problem. And a lot of times it can make the problem worse.

“I got fired in Milwaukee in [September] 2008. At that point we were [16] games over .500. In 2009, they were under .500 with a different manager. I’m not saying… it’s just different. It tends to disrupt the flow that goes on.

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Because of what’s happened after the fact, I don’t know how good the Pirates currently feel about the Gerrit Cole trade. Cole, of course, has seen his strikeouts skyrocket with the Astros, even after moving to the more difficult league. But it’s not like the Pirates got nothing, and the key to the trade all along, for me, has been Colin Moran. Moran once looked like a bust of a prospect, but in 2017, in the minors, he unlocked his power. He was a swing-changer, and the changes seemingly paid off. Moran took to the air with his batted balls, and, fast-forward — through 143 plate appearances with Pittsburgh, Moran has a 130 wRC+. He’s been making a strong early impression.

Because Moran was a swing-changer, I found myself making an assumption. The way this usually goes is that a guy works to elevates pitches down in the zone. That, in turn, can make him exploitable up. We’ve been talking about the high fastball for years. Yet Moran did something in early April that caught my eye. His first home run with the Pirates was a grand slam, and here’s where the pitch was located:

Up above the belt. I didn’t think that was a pitch he could get to. My assumption was wrong. I also hadn’t seen anything yet.

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The Twins designated Phil Hughes for assignment on Monday, bringing to an apparent end the 31-year-old righty’s five-year run with the team and perhaps marking the end of his 12-year big league career. On a superficial level, his is a tale of a big-money contract gone wrong, as the Minnesota media — which knows red meat when it sees it, as fan perception of Joe Mauer’s long decline phase attests — was quick to take note of the team’s $22.6 million remaining salary commitment. On a deeper level, Hughes’ tenure with the team is a reminder of the fragility of pitchers’ bodies in general, and the ravages of thoracic outlet syndrome, for which Hughes underwent surgery not once but twice. The annals of such surgeries feature few happy endings.

Hughes had thrown just 12 innings this year, allowing four home runs while being pummeled for a 6.75 ERA and a 7.62 FIP. After starting the year on the disabled list due to an oblique strain, he returned on April 22 and failed to escape the fourth inning in either of his two starts. Sent to the bullpen, he made five appearances, the last three each separated by one day of rest. While his average fastball velocity (90.4 mph according to Pitch Info) was back up to where it was in 2015, his last reasonably healthy season, it sounds as though manager Paul Molitor felt hamstrung when it came to finding situations in which to use him.

“I guess it was somewhat comparable to almost a Rule 5 situation where you’re trying to find the right spots, and they were few and far between,” Molitor told reporters on Monday night.

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The following three figures correspond to measurements for which objective data exists. One of them is the height above the ground at which the average major-league pitcher releases the ball. Another is the height at which a particular mystery pitcher releases the ball. Finally, the third is the height of this author’s three-year-old son.

(a) 2.18 feet
(b) 3.25 feet
(c) 5.75 feet

Here, with a minimum of suspense, are the corresponding answers:

(a) Mystery pitcher’s release point.
(b) The height of this author’s son.
(c) The average vertical release point of major-league pitchers.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the San Diego Padres. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All the numbered prospects here also appear on THE BOARD, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. Click here to visit THE BOARD.

65 FV Prospects

Scouts in the U.S. became enamored of Tatis during 2016 extended spring training in Arizona, and San Diego poached him from the White Sox before he had even suited up for a professional game. He was sent to full-season Fort Wayne as an 18-year-old in 2017 and hit .280/.390/.520 with 20 homers and steals and, perhaps most impressively for his age, a 14.5% walk rate. He also flashes occasional acrobatic brilliance at shortstop, though scouts are not unanimous about his long-term prospects there because of the size of Tatis’s frame. He’s five years younger than the average regular at Double-A right now.

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Between 2012 and 2014, the Cardinals had six first-round picks. They spent five of those picks on pitchers, three from college and two from high school. The strategy — overseen by scouting director Dan Kantrovitz, now assistant general manager in Oakland — is an interesting one, as most franchises attempt to load up on cornerstone bats to contend. Of the five pitchers selected, though, only Rob Kaminsky — traded for Brandon Moss — has failed to reach the majors thus far. Marco Gonzales is also gone from the Cardinals organization, departing in a trade last season for “a dense pillar of meat” in Tyler O’Neill. The other three picks are current employed as members of the Cardinals rotation.

• Michael Wacha – The top Cardinals selection in 2012, Wacha made the majors about a year after being drafted. Only health has prevented him from making more than the 121 starts and producing more than the 11.5 WAR over the last five years.
• Luke Weaver – The first pick by the Cardinals in 2014 out of Florida State experienced some ups and downs in his debut during the 2016 season, overcame some hurdles in a promising run during 2017, and has recorded solid numbers this season, now totaling 2.9 WAR in just 144 big-league innings.
• Jack Flaherty – Picked seven slots after Weaver, the high schooler has zoomed through the Cardinals system without much fanfare despite considerable success. He made his debut at 21 years old in 2017 and, in 2018, is proving he belongs.

Not included in the group above, but acquired during that time period for a near-million dollar bonus, is Alex Reyes, who was signed out of the Dominican Republic at the end of 2012 after moving from New Jersey to avoid the draft. With those four pitchers, plus Carlos Martinez (currently on the disabled list) and the surprising Miles Mikolas, the Cardinals have enviable depth and maybe the right situation for a six-man rotation. While acknowledging the influence of recency bias on such a claim, Flaherty’s dominant 13-strikeout performance on Sunday nevertheless suggests the great potential possessed by the 22-year-old.

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