Alejandro Kirk slashed a solid .285/.372/.415 with 14 home runs and a 129 wRC+ last year in his first full big-league season. Moreover, the 24-year-old Toronto Blue Jays catcher drew 63 free passes while going down by way of the K just 58 times. His 10.7% strikeout rate was third best in the junior circuit, behind only Steven Kwan’s 9.4% and Luis Arraez’s 7.1%.
How similar of a hitter is Kirk to Arraez? I asked that question to Blue Jays manager John Schneider prior to Thursday’s game in Dunedin.
“When you talk about contact, not a lot of swing-and-miss, yeah, they’re similar,” replied Schneider. “There’s a little more damage potential with Kirky. But more walks than strikeouts is tough to do at any level, [especially] the big leagues. So, I think when it’s just strike zone command, on-base, and contact-ability, they are pretty similar.”
Arraez, now a member of the Miami Marlins, won the American League batting title with the Minnesota Twins while slashing .316/.375/.420 with eight home runs and a 131 wRC+. Following up on my initial question, I asked Schneider if Kirk has the potential to capture a title of his own. Read the rest of this entry »
Spring Training stats mean nothing, right? We all know better than to take the sample size of a couple of plate appearances and declare a position battle won, or a starting rotation slot solidified. That being said, these first few weeks of live baseball are our first real chances to see glimpses of the work that’s been done over the winter, to try to pick apart new swings and arm slots and mechanical tweaks that may unlock a next level of play. A few Grapefruit League home runs won’t turn a quad-A non-roster invitee into a Silver Slugger, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn from the exhibitions.
This spring, Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran has been among those making a little noise early in camp. Duran showed up to Fort Myers with a lot to prove after a frustrating 2022 spent bouncing between Boston and the Triple-A WooSox. For the most part, he was unable to reproduce his minor league success in the majors, slashing .283/.349/.491 in 68 Triple-A games but .221/.283/.363 in 58 contests with the big league club, good for a .284 wOBA and a 78 wRC+. To go along with the troubles at the dish, he struggled to get comfortable in center field. He’s always had the raw speed to play any outfield position, and his reaction times were above average, but his arm is a weakness, and his route-running was among the worst in the league according to Statcast’s Route metric, which indicates that Duran lost 1.4 feet on outfield plays as a result of his route. Overall, that was enough for him to measure as well below average defensively.
What’s worse is that some of Duran’s more flagrant miscues came at particularly conspicuous times. The narrative nadir of the Red Sox’ disastrous season may have been a July 22 home game against the Blue Jays: Boston gave up a franchise-record 28 runs that night, four of which came around on a two-out pop fly off the bat of current campmate Raimel Tapia, which Duran lost in the lights, resulting in an inside-the-park grand slam. It was a perfect image of a bad team’s rock bottom. Read the rest of this entry »
As an East Coast dweller with a habit of watching West Coast broadcasts (and particularly Dodgers games) after the work is done and the kiddo tucked in, I’m well aware of Kenley Jansen’s evolution toward what we might politely call a more deliberate approach to pitching. Indeed, over the course of his 13-year major league career, he has evolved into one of the majors’ slowest workers on the mound. With this year’s introduction of a pitch clock, he spent the offseason working to adjust his delivery and is facing as much pressure as any pitcher to adapt to the new rules, though he’s hardly alone.
On Thursday, The Athletic’s Andy McCullough and Jen McCaffrey had some choice quotes from Jansen, who joined the Red Sox this year via a two-year, $32 million deal, on the subject of his tempo. Last year, while a member of the Braves, he saw his name atop an MLB Network graphic of the slowest-working pitchers. “I was so embarrassed,” he toldThe Athletic. “Like, dude, you’ve got to clean it up.”
“It drives me crazy,” he added. “Because I’m like, when did I get this slow?”
The topic is particularly relevant because Major League Baseball is adding a pitch clock this year, one that gives pitchers 15 seconds to begin their deliveries with the bases empty and 20 to do so with men on. MLB is also planning strict enforcement of the balk rule, because the aforementioned times require clarity on when a pitcher’s delivery starts, thus presenting an additional problem for Jansen.
The 35-year-old righty believes that the addition of a double swivel of his left (front) hip to start his delivery may have slowed his delivery down even as its addition catalyzed his resurgence. Stung by his reduced role in the 2020 postseason as the Dodgers finally won that elusive championship and hoping to regain velocity and command, he added the move in April ’21. By repeating a hip swivel that he’d previously introduced at the start of his delivery, he improved his balance, avoided drifting toward third base, and lengthened his delivery toward home plate. His results certainly improved: his average cutter velocity increased from 90.9 mph to 92.5, and his ERA fell from 3.33 to 2.22 (though his FIP and xERA barely budged). Last year, Jansen’s cutter averaged 92.2 mph, still faster than his 2018–20 velocities.
As you can see from the video above, the hip swivel is pretty subtle when viewed from the center field angle via which we typically watch pitchers, but the batter and umpire have a better view. That little movement matters because under the new rule, the clock stops at the start of the delivery, but what Jansen’s doing is a false start that can disrupt a hitter’s timing. Now in addition to speeding up his internal clock, he has to work on simplifying his delivery so as not to commit a balk.
While his hip swivel helps at least somewhat in explaining Jansen’s rebound in performance — mixing in his sinker and slider have helped as well — the data tell us he’s been throwing the brakes on his pace of work more or less since he assumed closer duties for the Dodgers in 2012, just three years after switching from catching to pitching and two years after reaching the majors. Last year, Statcast began publishing Pitch Tempo data, which measures the median time between pitch releases; not every pitch is accounted for, only those that were called strikes or balls. The Statcast measure differs from our lost-and-found Pace metric, which divides the time difference between the PITCHf/x timestamps of the first and last pitches of a plate appearance by the number of pitches in the PA minus one. Statcast also splits the data into into times with the bases empty and with men on base. Here’s what the data looks like for Jansen; by happy coincidence, the start of Statcast’s data coverage is the same year as his major league debut.
Jansen’s delivery times have generally been on the rise since he began pitching, with 2012, ’16, and last year standing out as points where he went from slow to slower to slowest. Pitchers as a group have been taking even longer between pitches over the same timespan, with the average with nobody on base increasing from 15.8 seconds in 2010 to 18.1 seconds in ’22, and from 22.2 seconds with nobody on in ’10 to 23.3 in ’22. Taking a page from contributor Chris Gilligan’s big-picture look at the attempts to improve the pace of play, here’s how the leaguewide tempo data looks alongside pace and time of game over the span of Jansen’s career:
Pace of Play Metrics
Season
Avg Empty
Avg Men On
Pace
Time of Game
2010
15.8
22.2
21.0
2:50
2011
15.8
22.2
20.9
2:51
2012
16.3
22.7
21.4
2:55
2013
16.7
23.1
21.9
2:58
2014
17.2
23.5
22.2
3:02
2015
17.6
24.2
23.2
2:56
2016
17.8
24.4
23.3
3:00
2017
17.3
23.5
22.7
3:05
2018
17.2
23.3
22.5
3:00
2019
17.7
23.9
22.9
3:05
2020
18.0
23.9
23.2
3:07
2021
18.3
24.3
23.7
3:10
2022
18.1
23.3
23.1
3:03
Note that last year reversed a years-long trend; the average time between pitches decreased relative to 2021, as did the length of the average nine-inning game. Those improvements have largely been attributed to the PitchCom signaling system, though two-year declines in strikeout and walk rates have helped as well.
While I could give you a pair of graphs comparing Jansen’s splits to the league averages, I chose attempt to index his splits (pitcher tempo divided by league tempo times 100) into what I’ll call Tempo+, which I think similarly gets the point across:
From 2012 to ’21, Jansen was around 30% above average with the bases empty and about 17% above average with men on, but last year he set highs in both categories, climbing to 42% above average with the bases empty and 35% above average with men on. Good thing he moved out of the Pacific time zone, or I’d have been even more sleep-deprived.
Anyway, among pitchers with at least qualifying 100 pitches with the bases empty in 2022, Jansen actually had only the third-longest time between pitches:
Jansen did edge Loáisiga for the highest percentage of slow pitches, with 22.3% of his offerings with the bases empty taking at least 30 seconds, compared to 21.2% for Loáisiga. Meanwhile, with men on base, Jansen took over the major league lead in average time…
… but took a backseat to Gallegos in percentage of slow pitches, 58.2% to 57.4%; Williams (54.6%) and Colomé (51.7%) were the only other pitchers who topped 50% under those conditions. Gallegos might be the heavyweight champion of dawdlers, as his 33.8 seconds with men on in 2021 is the highest mark of the past seven seasons, and his 26.5 seconds with the bases empty that same year ranks third behind only Rafael Dolis (27.2 seconds in 2020) and Chapman (26.9 seconds in 2021). Jansen’s former teammate, the infamously slow Pedro Báez, has the second-longest split with men on, 32.9 seconds in 2015, and shaved just one second off that the following year.
if I had six months to live, I'd spend it watching Pedro Baez throw an inning because it would feel like eternity
It’s important to point out that Pitch Tempo doesn’t directly line up with the new pitch timer, which starts when the pitcher receives the return throw from the catcher and ends once he begins his delivery. Statcast publishes a Timer Equivalent that just subtracts six seconds from the tempo measure. Jansen’s Timer Equivalent measures of 19.6 seconds with the bases empty and 25.6 seconds with men on base would both constitute what former teammate Clayton Kershaw cheekily called “a shot clock violation” given the new regulations.
In terms of cleaning it up, Jansen is hardly alone. Using 100-pitch cutoffs for each split, last year 81 out of 523 qualifiers (15.4%) had timer equivalent averages over 15 seconds with the bases empty, and 56 out of 467 (12.3%) had averages over 20 seconds with men on. In both categories, the vast majority of the pitchers above those thresholds were relievers. In fact, only five pitchers who made at least half a dozen starts last year had timer equivalents greater than 15 seconds with the bases empty: Shohei Ohtani (15.7), Tylor Megill (15.3), JP Sears, Corbin Burnes, and Michael Kopech (15.1 apiece). Meanwhile, 16 starters had timer equivalents of at least 20 seconds with men on base, led by Montas, the only pitcher who cracked the tables above:
In an odd coincidence, not only is Montas here but also Sears, one of the pitchers he was traded for last August, and just missing the cut with an average right at 20 seconds is another, Ken Waldichuk. To be fair, Montas was bothered by shoulder problems that sent him to the injured list late last year and resulted in surgery earlier this week; his 28.0-second tempo average with men on base was 1.5 seconds higher than in ’21, suggesting he might have been trying to give himself a little extra time to recharge between pitches.
Indeed, that’s the general theory for the increased time between pitches, particularly for relievers; they’re throwing short stints at maximum effort and so need a bit of extra time to get that velocity to where it can have the greatest effect. FiveThrityEight’s Rob Arthur previously found that every second of delay adds .02 mph to average fastball velocity, which is to say that waiting 10 seconds can add 0.2 mph. Earlier this week at Baseball Prospectus, Darius Austin took a deeper look at the tempo-velocity link in light of the rule change, particularly searching for pitchers able to avoid losing velocity while improving their tempo from beyond the new clock limits to more acceptable times:
[P]itchers in the slower tempo group were 32 percent more likely to have increased their velocity with runners on. It’s the bases empty comparison that shows the notable difference here, though: only 24.3% (17 of 70) pitcher seasons saw an increase in average fastball velocity accompanying a reduction in time between pitches. By contrast, 41.4% of the pitchers who took more time on the mound added something to their fastball, making it over 70% more likely that fastball velocity increased relative to those who sped up between deliveries.
Particularly as he’s now 35 years old, Jansen is at least well aware of the continuous work it takes to adjust, but maintaining his effectiveness while adhering to the new rules is as big a challenge as he’s faced on the field. Here’s hoping he can get time on his side.
Sometimes I dream about a life as a scout, traveling around the world watching baseball players in person for the first time. That’s not reality for me, though. Instead, I’m limited to a dozen or so games a year in person and many more on my television. But every now and then, I get a remnant of that in-person feeling when watching on TV and can recall the performance pitch by pitch. Those are special in their own way. This year, one of those came in a mid-September game when Brayan Bello took on the Yankees in Fenway Park.
For the first time since his call-up in July and after a rough patch to kick off his big league career, Bello was on a nice run of success, with back-to-back starts of five or more innings. And over five innings, he was solid again against his team’s biggest rival, racking up 14 whiffs, striking out six and not yielding a single run. Through a combination of four-seamers, sinkers, changeups, and sliders, he stifled the Yankees’ lineup two times through the order. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Yu Darvish’s extension, then continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Los Angeles Angels (10:11) with The Athletic’s Sam Blum and the Boston Red Sox (59:32) with The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier, plus a Past Blast (1:47:29) from 1967, an impromptu chat between Ben and former MLB umpire Joe West about whether/why West edited his own Wikipedia page (1:50:12), and a few follow-ups (2:11:42).
Location: Boston, MA Department: Baseball Operations Status: Full-Time
Description:
The Senior Developer, Baseball Systems position will be a member of the baseball operations software development team, and is responsible for the design, development, and support, of all baseball systems. This individual will work closely with members of baseball operations to understand business requirements that drive the analysis, design, and development of quality baseball systems and solutions. This senior developer will collaborate closely with the Director of Baseball Systems, colleagues on the software development team, and baseball operations personnel from all departments.
Responsibilities:
Create leading-edge baseball solutions together with the software development team and others on new and existing baseball systems
Lead the design and implementation of the software architecture and embrace a software engineering mindset
Lead the software development process of critical baseball applications, including requirements gathering, analysis, effort estimation, technical investigation, software design and implementation, testing, bug fixing, and quality assurance
Responsible for the design and development of databases, web services, graphical user interfaces, and other aspects of web and desktop applications
Actively participate in the architecting, deployment, and maintenance of system solutions in a cloud-based environment
Actively participate with colleagues in design reviews, code reviews, and exercise best practices
Work closely with baseball analysts to design and implement solutions to their modeling and data needs
Respond to and resolve technical problems and issues in a timely manner
Identify and implement creative solutions for technical challenges
Qualifications/Characteristics:
TECHNICAL SKILLS:
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Computer Engineering, or a related field
6 or more years of development experience using some combination of C#, C++, Python, Typescript, JavaScript, T-SQL, ServiceStack, Angular, React, Vue, or other frameworks, with a focus on responsive & progressive web applications.
Strong database design and development experience, especially with MS SQL Server
Experience integrating systems and data using third-party APIs and web services
Experience with cloud technologies from Azure, AWS, or GCP are a plus
Experience with R is a plus
Design experience with Zeplin, Photoshop, or similar applications, are a plus
Experience with source control tools such as Git, TFS, or similar
GENERAL SKILLS:
Ability to work autonomously and as a team in a fast paced environment
High level of attention to detail with the ability to multi-task effectively
Comfortable working remotely using Zoom, Teams, Slack, Trello, and other tools to communicate with all team members
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Excellent organizational and time management skills
An understanding of baseball, common terms, and analytic measures, are a plus
The Red Sox (or FSM) requires proof of being up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment, subject to applicable legal requirements. Up-to-date means having received all recommended COVID-19 vaccination doses in the primary series and a booster dose(s) when eligible, per CDC guidelines.
Prospective employees will receive consideration without discrimination based on race, religious creed, color, sex, age, national origin, handicap, disability, military/veteran status, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or protected genetic information.
Let’s play some word association. I’m going to name someone, and I want you to say the first two words that come to mind. Okay, I’m ready: Richard Bleier. Did “middle reliever” jump to the fore? You’re exactly right; Bleier spent 2022 chipping in mid-quality work in the middle innings for the Marlins. One more: Matt Barnes. Did you say “middle reliever” this time? If not, maybe it was “ex-closer.” Barnes was a roller coaster ride of a closer right until he wasn’t, and he spent 2022 pitching anywhere from the sixth to ninth inning depending on need, at least when he wasn’t on the IL.
This year, I can guarantee you that those two won’t be reprising their roles. On Monday, the Red Sox and Marlins swapped their relievers in a one-for-one trade. It’s not even a contract-based swap; both players are under contract for 2023 with a team option for 2024, and the Red Sox sent $5 million to Miami to even out the payroll expenditure on the deal. It’s simpler than that: I want your reliever, and you can take mine. Read the rest of this entry »
Who was better, Joe Mauer or Chase Utley? I asked that question in a Twitter poll earlier this week and the result was… well, lopsided. The erstwhile Minnesota Twins catcher/first baseman garnered 79.5% of the 1,362 votes cast, while the former Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman received just 20.5%. With both debuting on next year’s Hall of Fame ballot — one that will include numerous notable holdovers — that breakdown could be telling. While it seems unlikely that Utley will join the likes of Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker as a one-and-done snub, might he poll just as poorly, or even worse, with BBWAA voters as he did in the head-to-head matchup with Mauer?
Utley finished his career with 61.6 fWAR and 64.5 bWAR.
Mauer finished his career with 53.0 fWAR and 55.2 bWAR.
Adrián Beltré, who will also debut on the ballot, is a shoo-in to be elected in his first year of eligibility. It is much for that reason that the Mauer-Utley comparison is meaningful — at least for the segment of voters that includes yours truly. Eight of the 10 candidates I voted for this year will be returning, and Beltré is a no-brainer. That leaves one open slot. Moreover, I’m not alone in this conundrum. A total of 54 voters put checkmarks next to 10 names, with eight ballots being identical to mine. Read the rest of this entry »
Chris Murphy is gaining helium. A sixth-round pick in the 2019 draft out of San Diego State University, the 24-year-old southpaw was No. 38 on our Red Sox Top Prospects list going into last season, with a modest 35+ FV. But on the heels of a 2022 campaign that saw him excel in 15 starts with Double-A Portland and then hold his own in 15 more with Triple-A Worcester, this year he will be moving up to the 14–16 range with a 40 FV, per our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. He also just participated in Boston’s Rookie Development Program, which focuses on easing the transition into MLB — an indication that Murphy could be in Boston as soon as this summer.
A self-proclaimed nerd who is well-versed in his vertical approach angle and pitch metrics, Murphy discussed his craft earlier this week at Fenway Park.
———
David Laurila: Let’s start with who are you as a pitcher. How do you get outs?
Chris Murphy: “That’s a good question. There have been times in my career where it’s very fastball heavy — come at you fastball/changeup primarily and then curveball/slider secondarily. I’ve generally been aggressive with the fastball up in the zone. I have good vertical break, good two-plane, and a pretty decent vertical approach angle. That’s why I get swings and misses up in the zone and why my changeup plays down in the zone. Using that to my advantage, being a shorter pitcher, is something that’s given me a career to this point. That and throwing from the left side.”
Laurila: How tall are you?
Murphy: “The book will say 6-[foot]-1, but I’m probably just under six feet. I weigh about 185, so I’m not the biggest guy.”
Laurila: You said that you get good vertical but also two-plane. Can you elaborate?
Murphy: “Yes, I get both ride and run. There are days where my fastball is more true and it’s just ride, but ride and run is ideally where I like it to be. And then with the changeup, it’s about killing the spin, killing the vert, and adding more horizontal. The goal this year is to be under six vertical and negative-18–19 horizontal.” Read the rest of this entry »
The Red Sox have spent most of the offseason with a big hole up the middle of their infield. With Xander Bogaertsdeparting in free agency, Boston had no true shortstop on the roster. While Enrique Hernández and Christian Arroyo each made a handful of starts at the six on Bogaerts’ off days, neither is a true shortstop and both are needed to man the other up-the-middle positions, where the team still lacks depth. Yesterday, the Red Sox at least partially filled that hole, trading left-handed reliever Josh Taylor to the Royals for switch-hitting infielder Adalberto Mondesi and a player to be named later.
A healthy Mondesi is one of baseball’s most exciting position players to watch. Most fans likely know him for his top-of-the-charts speed, which he shows off in all facets of his game. Let’s start with the most visible one: baserunning. Mondesi has multiple seasons under his belt with an average sprint speed above 30 feet per second, making him one of the most electric runners in the game. Since his debut in 2016, 44% of his competitive runs have been defined as bolts, a mark bested by just four others during that time. Of course, Mondesi has also used his speed to steal bases, and his combination of aggressiveness and efficiency has allowed him to put up ludicrous stolen base numbers despite never getting a full season’s worth of plate appearances:
Plate Appearances Per Stolen Base Leaders, 2018-22
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