The Tampa Bay Rays are taking a relatively novel approach to divvying up innings between starters and relievers. Injuries have robbed the team of Alex Cobb for the season, Matt Moore and Drew Smyly for much of the year, and Jake Odorizzi for a time as well. Despite those problems, the team climbed to a 41-32 record a few weeks ago thanks to a splendid season from Chris Archer, good seasons from Odorizzi, Nate Karns — and even Erasmo Ramirez has pitched in to help the team form a solid rotation. The team has slid back to the pack in the difficult-to-decipher American League East, but still finds itself just two games back of the Yankees after losing nine of their past 12 games. Rays’ starters have been effective, but have not pitched deep into games, leaving the outcome of many games to a set of inexperienced relievers who have been shuffled between the big-league club and the minors all season long.

The Rays’ strategy appeared to be related to to two potential issues. First, the rotation was so depleted at the beginning of the year, they twice pitched bullpen games, letting Steve Geltz pitch a couple innings until his spot in the batting order. The other problem is that the deeper pitchers tend to pitch into games, the worse they tend to do. Getting a pitcher out of the game after two times through the lineup can limit damage to the starters and it can work so long as the team has a deep and effective bullpen. The Rays’ starters have averaged just 89 pitches per start, the fewest in MLB. Ted Berg noted a few weeks ago that the Rays were on pace for the second-lowest total of plate appearances (to the 2012 Colorado Rockies, who experimented with a four-man rotation) three times through the lineup in the last decade.

The graph below shows innings pitched by every bullpen this season.

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Carlos Carrasco’s Wednesday night ended with a smile, but few others were smiling, as Joey Butler broke up a would-be no-hitter in the ninth with two outs and two strikes. Throw in the fact that Butler’s liner just barely sailed over Jason Kipnis and you could argue Carrasco came as close as you can come to a no-hitter without pulling it off. Still, it was rather obviously the performance of a lifetime — Carrasco struck out Rays hitters 13 times, and he missed a full 30 bats. The line-drive hit came on pitch no. 124; Carrasco’s previous season high was 114.

A performance like Carrasco’s is interesting on its own. Yet in this case, it’s even more interesting in context. Carrasco dominated the Rays on July 1, just missing a no-hitter. Carrasco got knocked around by a very similar Rays lineup on June 19, getting pulled with a 10-hitter. The Rays, in other words, got to go up against Carlos Carrasco twice in two weeks, and the first time around, they got the better of him. But it turned out that didn’t give them an advantage. In the second game against the same team, Carrasco simply pitched like someone else.

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Last year’s Rays were, objectively, a disappointment. Forecast to do pretty well, the team ultimately lost more games than it won, finishing fourth in a surprising division. Beneath the surface numbers, though, there was something a little more positive — by BaseRuns, the Rays should’ve gone 83-79. Over the course of the year, the Rays underachieved what they arguably deserved, so the team was more competitive than it looked. But hey, 2014 was 2014. Those Rays traded David Price. They traded Ben Zobrist. They lost Joe Maddon. Early this year, the Rays lost Alex Cobb. They’ve been without Drew Smyly. They’ve been without Desmond Jennings. Last year, the Rays were borderline competitive, and they moved forward without the same talent.

And now they’re 41-32. They’re leading the East by a couple games, and the only bad team in that division has been the Red Sox. BaseRuns puts the Rays closer to 39-34, but that’s not a meaningful difference, the take-home message being, the Rays are fine. They’ve survived a massive talent loss, and if anything, now they’re playing better. Per usual, the Rays have had to overcome a number of obstacles in order to remain a relevant team. What, precisely, has taken place in Tampa Bay?

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Over the last calendar year, there are 139 qualified major-league hitters. Prorating their plate appearances to 600 per person, one finds that Mike Trout has the highest WAR at 7.2, followed by Russell Martin, Buster Posey, and Anthony Rizzo. None of that should come as much of a surprise, but the hitter right behind that group and just ahead of Josh Donaldson, Andrew McCutchen and Bryce Harper could provide a bit of shock. Over the last calendar year, Kevin Kiermaier has been worth six wins per 600 plate appearances.

Kiermaier, who has worked to improve his offense, is incredibly reliant on his fantastic defense for his great WAR numbers. While Kiermaier is a valuable player, it is possible that his WAR total is inflated by defensive numbers that are likely to come down over time. Kiermaier has logged roughly 1200 innings in the outfield and has a UZR/150 of 42.1, but only six active outfielders with at least 2,500 innings have a UZR/150 greater than 15, with Lorenzo Cain, Ben Zobrist, Peter Bourjos, Brett Gardner, Josh Reddick, and Jason Heyward falling between 16 and 22 — that is, roughly half Kiermaier’s current rate. Although he’s been good, Kiermaier is probably not the fifth-best player in baseball over the last year, and his defensive numbers should serve as a reminder that defensive statistics take some time before they become reliable.

Yesterday, I covered some players whose current WAR was potentially undervalued due to lower than normal defensive numbers in an article titled Heyward, Pedroia, and Your Annual Reminder About Defense. The present article renders yesterday’s title false as the articles together are now daily reminders, but this post should be the final one in this series with few, if any, more reminders coming in the near future. The caveat regarding small sample size from Mitchel Lichtman and our FanGraphs library is quoted more fully in yesterday’s piece, but to summarize: use three seasons of UZR when being conclusory about the defensive talent of any given player.

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A little over a month ago, Owen Watson wrote a piece here entitled “Chris Archer and His Elite Slider, and in the piece, he noted that Archer had ramped up the usage of his off-speed stuff this year, throwing it 40% of the time in the first month of the season. In that piece, Watson also noted that Archer was throwing his slider harder than he had in previous years. A few paragraphs from his piece:
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When Adam Dunn posted his 190th strikeout in 2004, he broke a record originally set by Bobby Bonds over 30 years earlier, in 1970. While it took some time for Bonds’ mark to be surpassed, it’s become a common occurrence in the meantime. Indeed, including that one produced by Dunn, there have now been 18 player seasons that have met or exceeded Bonds’ previous high.

While Bonds’ strikeout distinction has been exceeded on a number of occasions, there’s another one that remains untouched. Since Pete Incaviglia’s 1986 season, his mark of 185 strikeouts has endured as the record for rookies. Not a single rookie has come within even 10 strikeouts of Incaviglia’s record. Tampa Bay outfielder Steven Souza looks poised to make a run at the record this season, however.

Souza has followed an interesting track to the majors, spending eight years in the Washington Nationals’ minor-league system before getting a shot as a full-time starter with the Rays this season. Souza, a part of the trade that sent Wil Myers to the San Diego Padres, hit very well in the minor leagues over the last few years. As Carson Cistulli noted after the trade, through no fault of his own, Souza found himself behind Jayson Werth, Bryce Harper, and Denard Span making it difficult to receive a promotion to the big leagues. In Chris Mitchell’s profile of Souza, he reinforced the same point, writing:

Yes, Souza has been old for his level for years now, but the “old for his league” caveat means less and less the closer a hitter gets to the majors. And when a hitter performs like Souza did in Triple-A, you absolutely have to take notice. More often than not, hitters who rake in Triple-A turn into serviceable big leaguers, regardless of how old they are.

The Rays saw this logjam and pounced, providing the team with a player to replace the departed Myers while also securing other players in the deal as well. Despite Souza’s age relative to other prospects, Kiley McDaniel rated him the 52nd best prospect in Major League Baseball heading into the season. For the Rays, the move seems to have worked out in the early going. Read the rest of this entry »

Eight Major League Baseball teams won an initial victory on Wednesday in two federal lawsuits contesting MLB’s minor league pay practices under the minimum wage and overtime laws. At the same time, however, the judge denied the league a potentially more sweeping victory in the cases.

The two lawsuits were filed in California last year by former minor league players who allege that they received as little as $3,300 per year, without overtime, despite routinely being required to work 50 or more hours per week during the playing season (in addition to mandatory off-season training). MLB and its thirty teams responded to the suit by challenging the plaintiffs’ claims on a variety of grounds. Wednesday’s decision considered two of these defenses in particular.

First, 11 of the MLB franchises argued that they were not subject to the California court’s jurisdiction and therefore must be dismissed from the lawsuit. Second, all 30 MLB teams argued that the case should be transferred from California to a federal court in Florida, which they argued would be a more convenient location for the trial.  In its decision on Wednesday, the court granted MLB a partial victory, agreeing to dismiss eight of the MLB defendant franchises from the suit due to a lack of personal jurisdiction, but refusing to transfer the case to Florida. Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote yesterday about the uncertainty surrounding the #1 overall pick, but that doesn’t keep scouts from trying to figure out who will go in the subsequent picks. It’s way too early to have any real idea what’s going to happen beyond the top 10-15 picks, but the buzz is growing in the scouting community about how things will play out and you people are sustained by lists, predictions and mock drafts. You’re welcome.

I’d bet it’s more telling on draft day to make judgments using the buzz and all the names I mention, rather than the one name I project to be picked, but you guys already don’t read the introduction, so I’ll shut up. For reports, video and more on these players, check out my latest 2015 MLB Draft rankings, or, if your team doesn’t pick high this year, look ahead with my 2016 & 2017 MLB Draft rankings.

UPDATE 5/11/15: Notes from this weekend’s college games: Dillon Tate was solid in front of GM’s from Arizona, Houston and Colorado. Dansby Swanson was even better, in front of decision makers from all the top teams, including Houston, who may still be debating whether they’d take Swanson or Rodgers if given the choice (Rodgers’ season is over). Carson Fulmer did what he usually does and probably has a home from picks 7-17 depending on how things fall on draft day, with an evaluation similar to Marcus Stroman and Sonny Gray as previous undersized righties with stellar track records and plus stuff.

Andrew Benintendi went nuts at the plate again (I’ll see him and Fulmer this weekend). And, finally, Jon Harris was excellent, rebounding from a not-so-great start, so, at this point, I would make Harris the 9th pick to the Cubs and slide Trenton Clark down a few picks, but still comfortably in the top 20. I also updated the 2016 MLB Draft Rankings as a few top prospects came off the DL and impressed, further strengthening the top of that draft, which is far and away better than this year’s draft.

1. Diamondbacks – Dansby Swanson, SS, Vanderbilt
I wrote about this more in depth yesterday, where I wrote it’s down to CF Garrett Whitley, C Tyler Stephenson and CF Daz Cameron with some chance RHP Dillon Tate is still in the mix and SS Dansby Swanson possibly involved. After writing that, I heard that Arizona is definitely considering those prep players, but teams don’t think they’ll pull the trigger on a way-below-slot prep option and they are leaning college, with Tate and Swanson the targets and SS Alex Bregman also getting some consideration as a long shot.

I’ve heard Arizona wants a hitter here and GM Dave Stewart was in to see Vanderbilt last night. I had heard they were laying in the weeds on Swanson, so, for now, I’ll go with Swanson here. To be clear, Arizona hasn’t made any decisions yet, so this group could still grow or they could change course. One scouting director told me yesterday when asked what he thought Arizona would do that “it sounds like they are going to do something crazy.” Until a few hours before this published, I had Arizona taking Whitley, so this is still very much in flux. There’s also some thought that Tate or Swanson were the targets all along and the rumors of cut-rate high school options have just been a ploy to get the price down–you can pick your own theory at this point.

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“The biggest thing is that I’m finally healthy,” said Wil Myers before a game with the Giants. After breaking his wrist in the fourth game of the year in 2014, and then following that up with another broken wrist (the other one) about six weeks later, Myers is happy to have his health. Those broken wrists did a number on his game.

After the first wrist broke, Myers played through it. “I still have a bone that sticks out,” Myers said as he points to a protrusion. “And any time I turned this wrist over, this tendon right here was very painful.” Even that first half of last year, before the second injury, Myers had below-average power (.126 Isolated Slugging, .145 is average).

It was worse when he came back from the second broken wrist after 81 days away. “I just didn’t have it,” Myers said as he shook his head. “This forearm looked like a baby’s forearm, I had no muscle.” That’s when his performance really tanked, as his .055 ISO and overall offense that was 50% worse than league average can attest.

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Last week, I wrote a piece looking at minor league players who saw stark decreases in the number of pitches they saw inside the strike zone. My analysis was inspired by recent research by Rob Arthur that suggested drops in Zone% can be early predictors of a breakout. Essentially, Arthur found that hitters who saw fewer pitches down the heart of the plate late in the year often outperformed their projections the following season. By his theory, a pitcher knows a good hitter when he sees one, and chooses to approach him with caution. So when pitchers change their approach, it’s often because the hitter’s gotten more talented.

One of the hitters who jumped to the top of my list was Richard Shaffer, a third baseman in the Tampa Bay Rays organization. Shaffer spent the entire 2014 season in Double-A Montgomery, where he hit an uninspiring .222/.318/.440. Although he hit for a good amount of power last year, the rest of his game left a lot to be desires. KATOH wasn’t thrilled with this lack-luster season — especially his elevated strikeout rate– and gave him just a 50% chance of even reaching the major leagues. Here’s a look at my system’s full break-down of Shaffer’s odds.

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