The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

A.J. Burnett’s stuff was never in doubt. The owner of a mid-90s fastball and a devastating knuckle curve that he threw from multiple arm slots, he could make batters look foolish and miss bats aplenty, but his command and control were another matter. When Burnett no-hit the Padres as a member of the Marlins on May 12, 2001, he walked nine batters — the most by a pitcher ever in a nine-inning no-no — and hit another.

Burnett spent parts of 17 seasons (1999–2015) in the majors with the Marlins, Blue Jays, Yankees, Pirates, and Phillies. He struck out at least 190 hitters in a season half a dozen times, led his league in strikeouts per nine twice, played a key role in helping New York win a World Series and in ending an epic postseason drought in Pittsburgh, and went through an impressive late-career reinvention there that culminated with his only All-Star berth in the final year of his career. Yet he also ranked among the league’s top 10 in walk rate nine times, leading once and placing second twice. Three times he led his league in wild pitches and once in hit batsmen. From his tattoos and nipple rings to his penchant for self-immolation on the mound, he earned an unenviable reputation by the middle of his career.

“When his head’s not right, then his body won’t follow. But his head goes first. Then his body gets all out of whack,” Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland bluntly told ESPN’s Johnette Howard in 2010, as Burnett suddenly devolved into yet another pitcher who couldn’t handle the Bronx. It took a change of scenery and mastery of a two-seam fastball to get his career back on track. Once he did, he became a favorite of teammates and fans — an outcome that at one point appeared so remote.

Allan James Burnett was born on January 3, 1977 in North Little Rock, Arkansas. He played mostly third base at Central Arkansas Christian High School, and when he pitched a bit during his junior year, “more of his pitches ended up at the backstop than in the strike zone,” wrote ESPN Magazine’s Eric Adelson in 2001. Filling in for a teammate in a key game as a senior, he broke through, and the Mets chose him in the eighth round of the 1995 draft; he signed for a $60,000 bonus. By FanGraphs’ version of WAR — which at 42.5 is well beyond the value estimate of Baseball-Reference’s version (28.8) — he’s the most valuable eight-round pick ever, though Paul Goldschmidt will soon surpass him.

Burnett struggled with his control and his temper from the outset of his professional carer, walking 77 batters (but striking out 94) in 91.2 innings in his first two seasons. He began harnessing his stuff after coming under the tutelage of Pittsfield Mets pitching coach Bob Stanley (the former Red Sox reliever) in 1997. Via Adelson, Stanley once sent Burnett back to the mound with bloody knuckles after Burnett had repeatedly punched a dugout ceiling in anger; he struck out the side.

In February 1998, Burnett was traded to the Marlins — who were in the process of tearing apart their World Series-winning roster — as part of the Al Leiter deal. Despite missing the first seven weeks of the season due to a broken right hand suffered while playing catch (he was protecting himself from an errant throw), he made an indelible impression with his performance at A-level Kane County, posting a 1.97 ERA with 14.1 strikeouts per nine in 119 innings. The performance rocketed him to No. 21 on Baseball America’s Top 100 Prospects list; the publication lauded his stuff (mid-90s fastball that touched 97, two other average or better pitches) and his makeup (“not afraid to make a mistake, loves to challenge hitters and won’t back down… willingness to make adjustments and correct mistakes on his own”).

Promoted to Double-A Portland, Burnett struggled, with high walk and homer rates pushing his ERA to 5.52, but he responded well to a detour to the bullpen, and the Marlins called him up to debut on August 17, 1999. He threw 5.2 innings and allowed one run in beating the Dodgers, the first of seven starts over which he posted a 3.84 ERA but walked 5.4 per nine.

Expected to make the Marlins out of spring training in 2000, Burnett ruptured a ligament in his right thumb and was sidelined until July 20. He pitched quite well initially but faded in September, finishing with a 4.79 ERA in 82.2 innings. He continued to develop over the next two seasons, throwing that ugly 129-pitch no-hitter against the Padres in just his second start off the disabled list following a right foot fracture (suffered after he stepped in a gutter while bowling, naturally).

Burnett enjoyed a significant breakout in 2002, when he posted a 3.30 ERA and struck out 203 in 204.1 innings while leading the NL in shutouts (five), hit and homer rates (6.7 and 0.5 per nine, respectively) and wild pitches (14). His usage was heavy even in the context of the time; his 12 outings with at least 120 pitches over the 2001–02 seasons tied for fourth in the majors, and at 24 and 25 years old, he was the youngest pitcher among the top eight in that category. Thus it wasn’t much of a shock when the elbow trouble he developed in early 2003 led to Tommy John surgery. He missed the Marlins’ championship run, but given how awash the team was with young pitching — Josh Beckett, Dontrelle Willis (his rotation replacement), Brad Penny, Carl Pavano — the team barely missed him.

Even so, Burnett made a strong return in June 2004, highlighted by a 14-strikeout effort against the Rockies on August 29. Despite posting solid numbers in 2005 (3.44 ERA, 116 ERA+, 198 strikeouts in 209 innings), he lost his final six decisions amid a race for a playoff spot and was sent home during the final week of the season after a clubhouse outburst regarding the negative attitude surrounding the team. “We play scared. We manage scared. We coach scared and I’m sick of it,” he told reporters. “It’s depressing around here. It’s like they expect us to mess up, and when we do they chew us out. There’s no positive nothing around here for anybody.”

Though Burnett apologized, and manager Jack McKeon was replaced, the skids were greased for his exit via free agency, not that the Marlins were going to pay market rate for his services. As one of the top starting pitchers in a weak field, he signed a five-year, $55 million deal with the Blue Jays, reuniting with pitching coach Brad Arnsberg, with whom he’d worked well in Florida. He pitched reasonably well in Toronto and benefited from the guidance of teammate Roy Halladay, who helped him evolve from a thrower to a pitcher. Asked about his approach by the future Hall of Famer, a flummoxed Burnett couldn’t come up with more than, “Umm… I just try to throw heaters by guys. And if I get ahead, I throw my curveball as hard as I can.”

“Roy just started laughing. Like for a while. And I’m just shaking my head, like, What? What! Dude, what’s so funny?” a sheepish Burnett recalled in 2018.

Elbow inflammation (2006) and a shoulder strain (’07) limited Burnett to 46 starts and 301.1 innings in his first two seasons as a Blue Jay, the latter amid some high pitch counts. Though his 4.07 ERA (104 ERA+) in 2008 was the highest mark of his Toronto tenure, he went 18–10 while leading the AL with 231 strikeouts (and 9.4 per nine) in a career-high 221.1 innings, then exercised an opt-out clause and hit free agency again.

The Yankees, smarting from missing the playoffs for the first time since the 1994–95 strike, signed the going-on-32-year-old Burnett to a five-year, $82.5 million deal on December 12, kicking off a spending spree that would also include even more lucrative deals for CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira. They won 103 games and the AL East in 2009 while Burnett pitched to a 4.04 ERA, struck out 195, and livened up a staid clubhouse with at least 10 celebratory pies-in-the-face of teammates who collected walk-off hits. In the postseason, he made three strong starts and two lousy ones, most notably sparkling in a seven-inning, nine-strikeout, one-run effort against the Phillies — and opposite Pedro Martinez — in Game 2 of the World Series, but getting roughed up for six runs in two-plus innings when starting Game 5 on three days of rest. Still, he did a lot more for his World Series ring than he’d done in 2003.

After cruising through the first two months of 2010, Burnett began spiraling downwards during an 0–5, 11.35 ERA June, his inability to self-correct on the mound apparent to teammates, opponents, media, and fans; the boos rained down. Even after turning things around, he cut both of his hands hitting a clubhouse door in anger after a July start, prompting Eiland’s unflattering assessment. While he held opponents scoreless in six of his 33 starts, he allowed six or more runs 10 times and finished 10–15 with a 5.26 ERA. He was similarly bad in 2011 and clashed with manager Joe Girardi when he was pulled early from games. Even so, the Yankees gave him playoff turns in both years, and he notably beat the Tigers in a must-win Game 4 of the 2011 Division Series.

That turned out to be Burnett’s final start as a Yankee. On February 19, 2012 he was traded to the Pirates for two minor league non-prospects, with the Yankees sending along $20 million to cover his remaining salary. Before he could make his first official appearance for Pittsburgh, he fractured his right orbital during a spring training bunting drill and needed surgery, delaying his debut until April 21. Nonetheless, he quickly took to his new surroundings and was embraced as a clubhouse leader and mentor as well as a fierce competitor. A clip of him telling the Dodgers’ Hanley Ramirez to “Sit the fuck down” after a strikeout still circulates on the internet:

This day in #PGHistory: A.J. Burnett strikes out Hanley Ramirez, before telling him to “Sit The F*** Down” at PNC Park. (2012) pic.twitter.com/F1VoHqScO8

— Pittsburgh Clothing Co. (@PGHClothingCo) August 16, 2017

“He wanted to impact an organization,” manager Clint Hurdle told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2016. “He was going to be our ace. I don’t know if he had been ‘the guy’ before, but he was going to be our guy.”

With his average fastball velocity having dipped from 95.0 mph in 2008 to 93.4 in ’11, Burnett became more reliant upon his two-seam fastball, which helped him keep the ball in the park. His ground-ball rate jumped from 49.2% to 56.9%, his home-run rate dropped from 1.47 per nine to 0.8, and he turned in a 3.51 ERA while helping the Pirates to 79 wins. He was similarly strong in 2013: Despite missing four weeks due to a calf strain, he struck out 209 hitters in 191 innings for an NL-high 9.8 K/9. More importantly, he helped the Pirates clinch their first postseason berth since 1992. Alas, his lone postseason start was a disaster; after two scoreless innings in the Division Series opener against the Cardinals, he allowed seven straight batters to reach base in the third, all of whom scored before he could retire a hitter. He didn’t get another turn, bypassed in favor of Game 2 starter Gerrit Cole as the series went five games.

Having completed his five-year deal — during which he made at least 30 starts annually, something he had done just twice prior — the going-on-37-year-old Burnett was mulling retirement. The Pirates didn’t issue him a $14.1 million qualifying offer, and by the time he decided to return in January, the team somehow wasn’t interested despite making no significant additions to its roster. Burnett instead signed a one-year, $16 million deal with the Phillies, but things went poorly for both him and the 89-loss team. While he made an NL-high 34 starts and pitched 213.1 innings, his highest total since 2008, he was lit for a 4.59 ERA and took a league-leading 18 losses. Pitching the entire season with a hernia that required offseason surgery couldn’t have helped.

Not wanting to end on such a sour note, Burnett returned to the Pirates via a one-year, $8.5 million deal ($4.25 million less than the Phillies offered). He was stellar in the season’s first half, posting a 2.11 ERA while allowing two or fewer runs in 15 of 18 starts. For the first time in his career, he made an All-Star team, though manager Bruce Bochy somehow couldn’t shoehorn him into the game. After struggling in his first three starts of the second half, he missed six weeks due to elbow inflammation. He returned and helped the Pirates secure their third straight Wild Card berth, collecting his 2,500th strikeout (the Cubs’ Jorge Soler) on September 27, and his 2,507th (the Reds’ Todd Frazier) on October 3, tying Christy Mathewson for 31st on the all-time list; he surpassed Mathewson an inning later by striking out Tucker Barnhart.

That turned out to be Burnett’s final outing, as he didn’t appear in the Wild Card Game, where the team was eliminated at the hands of the Cubs. Though he believed he could still pitch — and the numbers clearly say so, with 3,000 strikeouts an outside possibility — his desire to spend time with his wife and children won out. In his retirement, his Pirates teammates lauded him for his effect on his teammates. Said pitcher Jeff Locke, “There’s just nothing that any one of us in this clubhouse are going through, or are going to go through, that he really hasn’t been through.”

The Nationals finished the 2020 season with several major holes on their roster, and two of the biggest were related. They needed a new first baseman, after the now-departed Asdrúbal Cabrera and Eric Thames combined for -0.7 WAR at that spot last year. They also needed a cleanup bat, with no existing roster option looking fit to follow Trea Turner and Juan Soto in the lineup. Fortunately for them, a good first baseman typically bats in the middle of the order, meaning they could fix two major weaknesses with a single player. Two days before Christmas, they did just that, acquiring Josh Bell from the Pirates in exchange for right-handed pitching prospects Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean.

A trade of Bell has felt inevitable for a while now, as the Pirates are usually rebuilding in some capacity and always looking to shed salary. Set to turn 29 in August, he is entering his second season of arbitration after making $4.8 million last year, was in line to be the second-most expensive player on the team behind Gregory Polanco, and was one of the only remaining veterans on the team who could have fetched some kind of prospect haul in a trade. With Pittsburgh going nowhere in 2021, holding on to Bell didn’t make much sense. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2021 Hall of Fame ballot. Originally written for the 2013 election at SI.com, it has been updated to reflect recent voting results as well as additional research. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, and a chance to fill out a Hall of Fame ballot for our crowdsourcing project, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

If Roger Clemens has a reasonable claim as the greatest pitcher of all time, then the same goes for Barry Bonds as the greatest position player. Babe Ruth played in a time before integration, and Ted Williams bridged the pre- and post-integration eras, but while both were dominant at the plate, neither was much to write home about on the base paths or in the field. Bonds’ godfather, Willie Mays, was a big plus in both of those areas, but he didn’t dominate opposing pitchers to the same extent. Bonds used his blend of speed, power, and surgical precision in the strike zone to outdo them all. He set the single-season home run record with 73 in 2001 and the all-time home run record with 762, reached base more often than any player this side of Pete Rose, and won a record seven MVP awards along the way.

Despite his claim to greatness, Bonds may have inspired more fear and loathing than any ballplayer in modern history. Fear because opposing pitchers and managers simply refused to engage him at his peak, intentionally walking him a record 688 times — once with the bases loaded — and giving him a free pass a total of 2,558 times, also a record. Loathing because even as a young player, he rubbed teammates and media the wrong way (occasionally, even his manager) and approached the game with a chip on his shoulder because of the way his father, three-time All-Star Bobby Bonds, had been driven from the game due to alcoholism. The younger Bonds had his own issues off the field, as allegations of physical and verbal abuse of his domestic partners surfaced during his career.

As he aged, media and fans turned against Bonds once evidence — most of it illegally leaked to the press by anonymous sources — mounted that he had used performance-enhancing drugs during the latter part of his career. With his name in the headlines more regarding his legal situation than his on-field exploits, his pursuit and eclipse of Hank Aaron’s 33-year-old home run record turned into a joyless drag, and he disappeared from the majors soon after breaking the record in 2007 despite ranking among the game’s most dangerous hitters even at age 43. Not until 2014 did he even debut as a spring training guest instructor for the Giants. The reversal of his felony obstruction of justice conviction in April 2015 freed him of legal hassles, and he spent the ’16 season as the Marlins’ hitting coach, though he was dismissed at season’s end.

Bonds is hardly alone among Hall of Fame candidates with links to PEDs. As with Clemens, the support he has received during his first eight election cycles has been far short of unanimous, but significantly stronger than the showings of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Rafael Palmeiro, either in their ballot debuts or since. Debuting at 36.2% in 2013, Bonds spun his wheels for two years before climbing to 44.3% in ’16 and 53.8% in ’17 thanks to a confluence of factors. In the wake of both Bonds and Clemens crossing the historically significant 50% threshold, the Hall — which in 2014 unilaterally truncated candidacies from 15 years to 10 so as to curtail debate over the PED-linked ones — made its strongest statement yet in the form of a plea to voters from vice chairman Joe Morgan not to honor players connected to steroids. The letter was not well received by voters, but in the three cycles since, Bonds has gained just 6.9 percentage points. As with Clemens, the resistance may be too entrenched for him to reach 75% before his eligibility runs out with the 2022 ballot.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dave Magadan nearly won a National League batting title in 1990. A first baseman for the New York Mets at the time, “Mags” finished with a .328 average, seven percentage points behind Willie McGee. A big final game of the season could have pushed him over the top — the math showed as much — although the odds were against him. So too was a cagey southpaw making his 547th, and final, big-league start.

“I think I needed to go 4 for 4,” recalled Magadan, who is now the hitting coach for the Colorado Rockies. Willie McGee had been traded to the American League around the end of August — he went to Oakland — so his batting average was frozen. Because of that, those of us who were chasing him had a number to shoot for.”

Magadan went into the Wednesday afternoon finale hitting .329 — Eddie Murray, then with the Los Angeles Dodgers, was at .328 — and the targeted 4 for 4 would indeed have allowed Magadan to match McGee’s mark… albeit only through rounding. Magadan would have finished at .3348 to McGee’s .3353, leaving the latter with the official title by the narrowest of margins.

No decimal points were needed. Magadan went 0 for 1, and then hit the showers with his lone plate appearance having served as a reminder that you can’t always believe what you’re told told. This is especially true when the words are spoken by the opposing pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »

Devin Williams won the NL Rookie of the Year Award with 27 innings of pitching. They were 27 historically great innings, but 27 innings all the same — 22 appearances out of the bullpen, the equivalent of five or so starts if he were placed in the rotation. You could fit all of Williams’ 2020 inside one month if you wanted to; the only reason that wasn’t considered a more serious demerit is that the actual regular season only lasted two months. This year was about accomplishing as much as possible in a very short amount of time. With that in mind, let’s talk about Ke’Bryan Hayes.

Hayes, the Pirates’ 23-year-old third baseman, finished sixth in Rookie of the Year voting, trailing the three finalists as well as Dodgers right-handers Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May. You just saw a lot of Gonsolin and May, but there’s a good chance you still haven’t watched Hayes at all. He didn’t debut for the Pirates until September, after the team was already well on its way to securing the No. 1 pick with the worst record in baseball. No one sought this team out on MLB.TV, and two thirds of all teams didn’t even have Pittsburgh on its schedule. In case you haven’t updated yourself on Hayes outside of his annual prominence on top prospect lists, here’s what he did in his first game:

The very next inning, Kris Bryant decided to test out Hayes’ arm at third by charging home on a ground ball. It was a mistake: Read the rest of this entry »

Like most big-league broadcasters, Joe Block got his start down on the farm. The radio and TV play-by-play voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates broke into the business with the South Atlantic League’s Charleston RiverDogs back in 2000. That part of his story is isn’t unique. What is unique is that Block first shared the booth with a blind man.

Looking to break into baseball, Block traveled to Anaheim for the 1999 Winter Meetings after graduating from Michigan State University. Charleston had posted a broadcast intern position, and the fresh-faced Spartan secured an interview with the club’s then-broadcaster. The sit-down went well. Block hit it off with Dave Raymond — now the TV voice of the Texas Rangers — and was offered the job.

As fate would have it, they never got to call games together. Later that winter, Raymond took a job with the Triple-A Iowa Cubs. Replacing Raymond in Charleston was a duo that had worked together with the St. Paul Saints.

“I don’t know if you’re familiar with them, but Jim Lucas and Don Wardlow had been in the minor leagues for a number of years as a tandem,” explained Block. “Don was born blind. He never saw anything in his entire life.”

As an intern, Block’s primary responsibility was doing the pre- and post-game shows. Most appealing among his other duties was the opportunity to do play-by-play when Lucas took time off. What he learned was invaluable, and the unique circumstances played a big part in that. Read the rest of this entry »

Dick Hall had a long and remarkable career, and at 90 years young, his memory remains strong. There’s a lot for him to reminisce about. Originally an infielder/outfielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates — he debuted in 1952 — Hall converted to the mound in 1955 and went on to pitch for 16 big-league seasons.

A right-hander who both started and relieved, Hall had his best years with the Baltimore Orioles, with whom he had 65 wins, 60 saves, and a 2.89 ERA over two stints and nine seasons. His career culminated with three consecutive Fall Classics, the middle of which saw Baltimore beat the Cincinnati Reds in the 1970 World Series. All told, Hall pitched eight-and-two-thirds postseason innings without allowing an earned run.

Hall discussed his career shortly before becoming a nonagenarian in late September.

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David Laurila: You pitched for a long time, but only after starting your career as a position player. How did that come about?

Dick Hall: “Well, there was no draft when I signed with the Pirates in the fall of 1951. I then started playing in their minor league system in 1952, and after my
second season — after the 1953 season — they sent me down to Mazatlán, Mexico
to get further experience. I was a second baseman/outfielder in those days. Mazatlán almost sent me home, but then I changed the grip on my bat and started hitting home runs. Mazatlán calls Pittsburgh and said, ‘We’ll keep him after all.’

“I set the league home run record, so they welcomed me back the next year. I told the manager, ‘Look, I pitched all the time in high school, college, and semi-pro,’ so if he wanted, I could pitch. One Sunday we were up in Hermosillo, which is a few hours from Arizona, and we played a four-game series which included a doubleheader on Sunday. We carried four pitchers. We had a Cuban pitcher, a Mexican pitcher, and two from the United States. Anyway, on Sunday they scored a couple runs early. Our starting pitcher ran into huge trouble, so the manager called me in from center field. I ended up pitching six-and-a-third innings and gave up one single. Read the rest of this entry »

JT Brubaker had a satisfying summer. The 26-year-old right-hander didn’t dominate the stat sheet — neither his 4.94 ERA nor his 4.08 FIP was anything to write home about — but the fact that those numbers came in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform was a reason to smile. A sixth-round pick in 2015 out of the University of Akron, Brubaker debuted in late July and went on to throw 47.1 solid innings. Initially used out of the bullpen, he finished the season having made nine of his 11 appearances as a starter.

Brubaker was somewhat of a question mark coming into the campaign. He tossed just 27.2 minor-league innings in 2019 due to an arm ailment, and as a result garnered no better than a 40 FV and a No. 25 ranking on our 2020 Pirates Top Prospects list. As Eric Longenhagen opined back in February, the Springfield, Ohio native, “should fit in the back of a rotation or in a relief role [and] his health may dictate which.”

Brubaker discussed his debut, and his impressions of a season played amid a pandemic, following his final start of the year.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe the 2020 season?

JT Brubaker: “It’s been fun for me. It’s my first year in the big leagues, so I’ve enjoyed it. I feel like players have shown a little bit different side of bonding in baseball. They’re having fun with each other. I’ve seen more teammates laughing and joking with each other. The Cubs, for instance. That’s one team I’ve noticed just hooting and hollering in the dugout — stuff you might not be able to hear when there’s a crowd there.” Read the rest of this entry »

Without a true minor league season on which to fixate, I’ve been spending most of my time watching and evaluating young big leaguers who, because of the truncated season, will still be eligible for prospect lists at the end of the year. From a workflow standpoint, it makes sense for me to prioritize and complete my evaluations of these prospects before my time is divided between theoretical fall instructional ball, which has just gotten underway, and college fall practices and scrimmages, which will have outsized importance this year due to the lack of both meaningful 2020 college stats and summer wood bat league looks because of COVID-19.

I started with the National League East, then completed my look at the American League West, AL East, and Central. Below is my assessment of the , covering players who have appeared in big league games. The results of the changes made to player rankings and evaluations can be found over on The Board, though I try to provide more specific links throughout this post in case readers only care about one team. Read the rest of this entry »

Gregory Polanco had Greg Holland in a bind. Leading off the ninth inning in a one-run game, he worked the count to 3-1. Holland isn’t exactly a control artist, and none of his first four pitches had been in the zone — Polanco could sit dead red and only engage with a pitch he could pummel. He got it — middle-middle no less — and took a mighty cut:

Whoops! That wasn’t what Polanco was aiming for, and Holland got away with one. He finished Polanco off with a 3-2 slider below the zone, and the Pirates went down in order.

Everyone misses a cookie once in a while. Polanco, however, is making a habit of it this year. Here he is against Carlos Carrasco (see what I did there?) in August:

All told, Polanco has taken a swing at 26 pitches in the white hot center of the strike zone this year. He’s come up empty on 12 of them. That’s the worst rate in the majors this year — unsurprisingly — and the second-worst whiff rate on middle-middle pitches since the beginning of the pitch tracking era in 2008. Among batters who took at least 25 cuts at down-the-middle pitches, only Kyle Parker (in 2015) did worse. You haven’t heard of Kyle Parker, because, well, he swung and missed at too many pitches.

While you might be surprised by that particular Polanco fact, it’s no secret that he’s having a down year. He’s batting .135/.190/.294 and striking out in more than 40% of his at-bats. Have a synonym for futile? It probably applies to Polanco’s 2020. It would almost be a surprise if he weren’t having a tough time with easy pitches, though maybe not to this extent. Read the rest of this entry »