If you’re a major league hitter, you’ll reach a two-strike count. Not every time – baseball isn’t an every time game – but frequently, consistently, inevitably. In those two-strike counts, you’re going to see sliders. Again, not every time, but frequently. A quarter of two-strike pitches in the majors this year have been sliders of some variety. Pitchers are no dummies, and they know where their bread is buttered.

The worst thing that could happen with those two-strike sliders you’re bound to face? A strikeout, obviously. But bad news: There are going to be strikeouts. Again, not every time, but strikeouts are just a fact of life in baseball these days, and 21% of two-strike sliders have resulted in strikeouts this year. Not in the plate appearance – on that pitch specifically. No wonder pitchers throw so many of them.

With all that in mind, here’s a statement I’m sure you’ll agree with: A good way to get better at hitting is to stop striking out on two-strike sliders. I mean, this isn’t rocket science. Striking out is bad. Doing it less is good. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Oh, right, I guess I still have to tell you what this article is about. Let’s talk about a player who made a heroic change. Early in his career, he did a fair job protecting against sliders with two strikes (15.4% putaway rate on two-strike sliders). In 2023, though, things took a turn; he struck out on 20% of the two-strike sliders he saw. This year, however, he’s defending against them better than ever. No player in baseball has gone down less frequently against two-strike sliders than our mystery man’s 8.6% clip. Pitchers simply can’t get him out. He’s putting up a glorious 118 wRC+ and striking out less often than last year.
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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.

I know this isn’t really a blind item, what with the name of the article and the picture at the top and all, but bear with me for a moment. I’m going to give you some details about a mystery player. Here’s a list of all the transactions they’ve been involved in since their initial signing in 2016:

This feels like a pretty boring player, right? Some kind of replacement level journeyman, probably a reliever given how teams shuffle them on and off the end of the roster. It’s true: He’s a reliever, and a replacement level one at that, just like you’d expect. This particular player pitched to a 5.80 ERA and 4.44 FIP (4.94 xFIP, 4.35 SIERA, etc.) in 40 1/3 innings of work. His WAR was exactly zero across parts of three major league seasons.

Oh, here’s another data point. Our mystery man started the 2024 season in Triple-A, and things didn’t go so well. He struck out 29.7% of the opposing batters he faced, but walked 10.1% of them and gave up a ghastly eight homers in 34 innings of work. That’s, uh, not great. That’s how you end up with a 5.77 ERA. It’s also apparently how you end up as the reliever with the second-best ERA and best FIP in all of baseball, and earn a job as the closer for the Tampa Bay Rays. Read the rest of this entry »

Entering Thursday, the Tampa Bay Rays had stolen 35 bases in their previous 15 games. Even in this new age of increased stolen base rates, that’s impressive. Only one other team has swiped at least 35 bags over 15 games since the implementation of the new rules: the Tampa Bay Rays in May 2023. Before that, only one other team had accomplished the feat in the 21st century: the Tampa Bay Rays in May 2009. The last time a team other than the Rays stole so many bases in so few games was before the Rays franchise even existed; in 1992, the Milwaukee Brewers enjoyed two distinct 15-game stretches with at least 35 stolen bags.

Perhaps 35 and 15 aren’t round enough numbers for you. In that case, you’ll be happy to hear that the 2024 Rays are the very first team in the pitch clock/disengagement limit/bigger bases era to steal 50 bases in any 25-game span; they pulled it off between July 21 and August 18 (and again from July 22 to August 19, and July 23 to August 20). The last team to achieve this particular feat was — you guessed it — the 2009 Rays, and before them, the 1992 Brewers. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another edition of Five Things I Liked (Or Didn’t Like) This Week. August is always a down period for me when it comes to baseball watching. July has everything now. There’s the All-Star Game, the draft, and the trade deadline. Our trade value series comes out sandwiched in between. From late June through July 31, it’s full tilt baseball, and the first few weeks of August are a letdown by comparison. This year, the Olympics fit into that gap perfectly, and I’ve been watching whatever random event catches my eye the same way I usually flip between baseball games. But fear not: There’s plenty of baseball still going on, and I can’t stay away for long. I’m back in the saddle, and this week has a ton of great plays to choose from. And thanks, as always, to ESPN’s Zach Lowe for the format I’m borrowing here.

1. Twists and Turns in Pittsburgh
What kind of lunatic would say that August is the baseball doldrums? Oh, me? Well, ignore me, because some of the games this week have had juice. The Pirates are clinging to the periphery of the Wild Card race, while the Padres are roaring toward October with an absolutely scalding month of baseball. When the two teams faced off for their series opener in Pittsburgh this week, the Pirates were a game above .500, and after dropping that first game, they came back strong on Wednesday.

Some early offense staked the Pirates to a 6-5 lead even after starter Marco Gonzales got roughed up. Their best relievers were available. It looked like they might wriggle through. But Aroldis Chapman was a bit wild, and the Padres put two runners in scoring position with Manny Machado at the plate. No problem – Chapman just pulled out maybe the best pitch I’ve ever seen: Read the rest of this entry »

Another year, another frenetic trade deadline. This year’s bonanza was light on top talent relative to recent years, but it made up for that in volume. With tight races in both leagues and plenty of teams looking to shore up clear weaknesses, it was a seller’s market, particularly when it came to pitching. Now that the dust has settled, I’m here to hand out some judgment.

These are going to be inherently subjective, but that doesn’t mean I don’t put a little rigor into my system. I’m focusing on two things here when I look at individual teams. First, and more important: Did a team’s moves match up with its needs? This is easy to gauge, and since it’s the whole point of the deadline, it carries the most wait. Second: How’d teams do on the trades they made? I think this part is inherently more subjective – there’s no unified prospect ranking or database where we can see how traded players will do the rest of the season, and we’re working with less information than teams have. That doesn’t mean I’m not crediting teams for trades I like or docking them for moves I don’t, just that I’m weighting it slightly less than the first category. Let’s dive right in.
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You didn’t really think teams were done swapping relievers after Friday and Saturday, did you? If you thought maybe they were tapped out for late relief help on Sunday and Monday, well, you thought wrong! If your bullpen doesn’t look like there are enough dudes to capture Helm’s Deep, you’re woefully short-armed.

The San Diego Padres acquired LHRP Tanner Scott and RHRP Bryan Hoeing from the Miami Marlins for LHSP Robby Snelling, RHSP Adam Mazur, 3B/2B Graham Pauley, and 3B/SS Jay Beshears

As one of baseball’s elite closers on an expiring contract, Tanner Scott was arguably the best short-term option available among relievers. His walk rate has peeked up a little to the numbers of the bad old days, but his first-strike percentage has stayed firmly in positive territory, which is an important indicator of where walk numbers will settle. Scott is likely to help the Padres in a very tight NL Wild Card race, but he’ll probably be even more important for them in the playoffs if they can get there. In San Diego, he teams up with Robert Suarez to asphyxiate opposing lineups late in the games. As far as elite closers who occasionally walk a few too many batters go, Scott is one of the less stressful of the genre, because he’s so hard to hit against with any authority, giving him a good shot at escaping jams following those free passes.

Bryan Hoeing is a sinker/slider reliever who has never quite clicked, as he’s never really been able to induce many swings-and-misses, nor has he mastered the art of inducing weak groundballs. He strikes me mostly as a depth guy who has plenty of years of club control left, and barring a breakout, he seems destined to be shuffled back and forth between San Diego and Triple-A El Paso a lot over the next few years. This trade is about Scott. Read the rest of this entry »

Two of my favorite hobbies are getting incredibly interested in minor moves made by the Tampa Bay Rays and overrating Dylan Carlson. Boy, is today right up my alley, then: the Cardinals traded Carlson to the Rays in exchange for reliever Shawn Armstrong. Another of my favorite hobbies: teams buying and selling at the same time. The Giants got in on that by acquiring Mark Canha from the Tigers in exchange for Eric Silva. Three things I love at once? Let’s dive into the details and see what’s going on in this strange pair of trades.

It’s easy to identify the sides in the first trade. The Rays are continuing to pry apart their roster piece by piece, while the Cardinals are consolidating for a playoff push. Armstrong is a depth arm and occasional opener who can give you multiple innings at once. He’s recorded four or more outs in a game 11 times already this year, hardly your average single-inning reliever. Some of those outings have been inefficient – he has a 5.40 ERA and opponents are absolutely tattooing him when they put the ball in play. But he’s been a perfectly capable reliever for the last three years, and as we all know, single-season ERA/FIP gaps are hardly predictive. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re barreling toward the trade deadline, which means it’s time for teams to decide if they’re in, out, or Tampa Bay. After picking which of those categories they fit into, the next move is obvious. In? Trade for a reliever. Out? Trade away your relievers. Tampa Bay? Make 10 moves, with more moving parts than you can possibly imagine. All of those types were on display this weekend, so let’s round up some reliever trades.

The Brewers and Rockies got the party started with a simple swap: Nick Mears to the Brewers, Bradley Blalock and Yujanyer Herrera to the Rockies. This one is basically what you’d expect from a deadline deal. The Brewers need relief help; they have nine pitchers on the IL, and while they just got Devin Williams back, they lost Bryan Hudson to injury earlier this week. It’s been an uphill battle to fill innings in Milwaukee this year. Mears slots right into the middle of the bullpen, helping to lengthen the number of innings the Brewers can cover with high octane arms. The Brewers have the fewest innings pitched by starters this year, so that depth really matters.
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At best, the Rays (54-52) and Cubs (51-56) are on the outskirts of their leagues’ respective Wild Card races, and while both have been busy ahead of the July 30 trade deadline, they’re geared towards improving for down the road rather than this season. On Sunday, the two teams came together for a swap of club-controlled third basemen, with Isaac Paredes heading to Chicago and Christopher Morel to Tampa Bay along with a pair of pitching prospects, righties Hunter Bigge and Ty Johnson.

The 25-year-old Paredes is no stranger to the Cubs, as they signed him out of Mexico for an $800,000 bonus in July 2015, then traded him to Tigers on July 31, 2017 — when he was still in A-ball — alongside Jeimer Candelario in exchange for Alex Avila and Justin Wilson. Since being dealt to the Rays in April 2022, he’s developed into an effective middle-of-the-lineup hitter. After receiving down-ballot MVP support for his 31-homer, .250/.352/.488 (137 wRC+) performance last year, he made his first All-Star team this year, and is currently hitting .245/.357/.435 (130 wRC+) with 16 homers.

Despite that output, Paredes does not hit the ball very hard. His 85-mph average exit velocity ranks in just the fourth percentile, while his 26.1% hard-hit rate is in the fifth percentile; his 5.4% barrel rate is in the 26th percentile. But Paredes excels at pulling fly balls, and particularly at depositing them into the left field corner, which at Tropicana Field is closer to home plate (315 feet) than any current ballpark, since balls hit to Fenway Park’s Green Monster (310 feet away but with a 37-foot high wall) and Minute Maid’s Crawford Boxes (315 feet away with a 21-foot high wall) both require greater elevation to get out. Entering Sunday, Paredes’ 46 pulled fly balls tied him with Anthony Santander for the major league lead, with all 16 of his homers coming via that route. Read the rest of this entry »