Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Justin Dunn, Justin Grimm, and Tyler Mahle — on how they learned and developed their curveballs.

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Justin Dunn, Seattle Mariners

“I had a curveball before I had my slider. I learned it from my dad at 12 years old. He used to play in men’s leagues, and while he never played at a real high level, he loves the game. He’s a student of the game.

“Essentially, I take a two-seam grip and put my thumb underneath, finger through the lace, pressure to the ball.When I was younger, he would tell me to just throw it like a football, to never turn my wrist down. It would be big, loopy, and slow. As I got older, I started to throw harder and understand finger dexterity and about pulling the ball down. I learned that I could pull a little bit more with my middle finger and get it a little tighter, and sharper. Read the rest of this entry »

There’s no question that Nick Madrigal can hit. The Chicago White Sox drafted the sweet-swinging infielder fourth-overall in 2018 after he slashed .361/.422/.502 at Oregon State University — and he’s continued to rake. Last year, Madrigal put up a tasty .311/.377/.414 slash line between three levels, reaching Triple-A in his first full professional season.

Few doubt that the just-turned-23-year-old will be a solid big-leaguer, as his bat-to-ball skills come with strong defense at the second base position. The question is whether he’ll ever produce more than a modicum of in-game power. Madrigal stands 5’ 7”, and he’s gone deep just four times in 705 minor-league plate appearances.

Could he one day display pop? Mindful that 5’ 6” Jose Altuve homered 31 times last year, I asked Madrigal how much raw power he actually has.

“I have some in my swing,” Madrigal told me on Friday. “I’m getting stronger and stronger every year, so I do think power could be part of my game. I’m not too worried about it, though. People say, ‘When will you start doing that?’ or ‘When will you start doing this?’ But I know what kind of player I am. My job is to get on base. I can drive the ball, but I’m not going to go up there trying to hit home runs, or anything like that.”

Once upon a time, he did go for the downs. Read the rest of this entry »

Nick Lodolo went into last year’s draft rated as the top pitching prospect in a pool heavily populated by position players. Subsequently selected seventh overall by the Cincinnati Reds, the left-hander out of Texas Christian University now enters his first full professional season as a potential, if not probable, fast-mover. In big league camp despite a dearth of experience, Lodolo has impressed with both his arm and his demeanor. More on the latter in a moment.

Lodolo is ranked No. 92 on our 2020 Top 100 Prospects list, with pitchability perhaps his greatest attribute. He’s not your prototypical flamethrower — his heater sits 93-95 and touches 96 — but is rather a craftsman-in-the making. He’s also silky smooth. As Eric Longenhagen wrote in Lodolo’s scouting summary, the 6-foot-6, 195 pound southpaw’s “frame is ideal, his delivery elegant and repeatable.”

On Tuesday, I asked Lodolo for a self-scouting report. His response came as anything but a surprise.

“I’m obviously a guy who attacks the zone,” said Lodolo, who turned 22 last month. “I move my fastball in and out really well. I’ll pretty much throw anything for a strike, whenever in the count. I don’t think of myself as a power pitcher, although [power] is something I do kind of have. Luckily. I’ll use that to my advantage — for instance when I work up in the zone — but for the most the part, I take pride in my command, and in limiting free bases.”

He didn’t give up any freebies in his first taste of professional action. In 18 1/3 innings between Rookie-level Billings and Low-A Dayton, Lodolo didn’t issue a single walk. He fanned 30, and surrendered 18 hits. Read the rest of this entry »

In April of 2018, Trevor Bauer conducted an experiment. While he never admitted it, he mysteriously threw the ball with significantly more spin for an inning. Given Bauer’s repeated insistence that adding pine tar or some other equivalent foreign substance could increase his spin rate by 200-300 rpm, and the fact that his spin rate was almost exactly 300 rpm higher in the first inning as compared to the rest, he might as well have winked.

So, uh, let’s talk about last September. The following graph is Bauer’s average four-seam fastball spin rate by game:

Now, I’m not a baseball scientist. But short of Alan Nathan and Meredith Wills and David Kagan, those are in short supply. So I thought I’d conduct a non-rigorous but still curious investigation of these September starts to see if I could get to the bottom of what happened.

Let’s get something out of the way first: my base case, before I started investigating, is that Bauer got back into the sticky stuff. The jump is just so clean, so consistent within each game, that it doesn’t look at all accidental. In a single earlier game, on August 19, Bauer seemingly discovered some spin, posting his then-highest single game average spin rate, just over 2500 rpm. For the rest of 2019, however, he lived between 2250 and 2500 rpm. Then, like magic, every single pitch Bauer threw in September had a spin rate higher than 2500 rpm.

What could cause this, if it isn’t some type of sticky substance? It’s a long shot, but maybe Bauer started cutting the pitch. What does that mean? If you already know, you can skip this section, but I’ll go over it quickly. Picture a tire rolling down the road. Now, picture that same motion by a ball in air, with no road in the way. That’s transverse spin. Picture the baseball with that tire-style spin, with the car in reverse, and you have a 100% spin efficiency fastball. Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchers and catchers have begun reporting to camps, and all but a small handful of name-brand free agents have found home. From among our Top 50 Free Agents list, one in particular stands out for multiple reasons: Yasiel Puig. The enigmatic 29-year-old right fielder’s current plight and potential matches are worth a closer look.

Signed to a seven-year, $42 million contract after defecting from Cuba in 2012, Puig made an instant impact upon debuting with the Dodgers on June 3, 2013, and was just about the game’s most arresting — and polarizing — presence for his first two seasons in the majors. What’s an article about Puig without some video? Let’s remember some highlights.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the first installment of the eighth annual Effectively Wild season preview series, Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller preview the 2020 Reds with The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans, and the 2020 Brewers (40:26) with The Athletic’s Derek VanRiper.

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We’re not scraping the bottom of the free agent barrel quite yet. Yasiel Puig remains available, as do a number of lesser but still valuable big league types, like Collin McHugh, Brian Dozier, and Kevin Pillar. We are at the point in the winter, however, when we can start filing a few of the lesser signings in a joint roundup. The special on this particular menu is middle relievers fleeing the Cubs for big league deals with NL Central rivals — come for the Pedro Strop news, stay for the briefing on David Phelps. Or vice versa; do as you please.

Pedro Strop — Cincinnati, one year, $1.825 million, up to $3.5 million with incentives

Many moons ago, when Strop was toiling away in the Rockies farm system, he led the Northwest League in strikeouts. That’s not normally the kind of achievement that merits acknowledgement all these years later, except for the fact that he did so as a hitter (and to be fair, he was in good company; future All-Star Michael Saunders finished second in that category). Nonetheless, 86 strikeouts in 247 plate appearances marked the end of his time as an infielder. Colorado tried him on the bump the following spring, and after striking out 35 hitters in his first 26 minor league innings, he was on his way to bigger and better things.

Now 34, and with a ring and almost $30 million in the bank, Strop is coming off of his worst season in nearly a decade. Over 50 games and 41 innings, he posted a pedestrian 4.97 ERA with a 4.53 FIP, snapping a string of six consecutive sub-3.00 ERA campaigns. Never a control specialist, his 11.2% walk rate was the highest mark he’d permitted since 2012. The bigger problem, though, was the homers. He surrendered six of them, a career high, and more than double his career HR/9 rate. Alongside, Strop’s average fastball dropped a tick and a half relative to career norms and he enticed fewer whiffs with both his fastball and the slider that he’s long relied on as an out pitch. Read the rest of this entry »

Nicholas Castellanos is not the last domino to fall in free agency, but he’s pretty close to the end of the line. After Josh Donaldson signed with the Twins and Marcell Ozuna settled for a one-year deal with the Braves, Castellanos was the next logical domino. And while the Cincinnati Reds appeared to have their outfield slots spoken for after signing Shogo Akiyama, theirs was also an outfield brimming with question marks regarding health, playing time, and performance. The Reds needed to go further to solidify their plan to compete in 2020. The result is a four-year deal worth $64 million with an opt-out after the first and second year, with C. Trent Rosencrans, Ken Rosenthal, Jon Heyman, and Jeff Passan reporting the various details.

It’s been a few months, but the contract is fairly close to the four-year, $56 million deal the crowd and Kiley McDaniel predicted as part of our Top 50 Free Agents list. Yasiel Puig and Brock Holt are the only remaining unsigned players on the entire list. The opt-outs do add value to Castellanos’ contract, but this contract is paying for a relatively optimistic view of Castellanos to begin with. The contract comes in sharp contrast to the one-year deal that Marcell Ozuna just signed, particularly given the opt-out. Ozuna is just one year older than Castellanos, but given the limited number of suitors for corner outfielders, one team having a strong, negative impression of Ozuna, or a potentially positive view of Castellanos, could have had a significant affect on the negotiations. That Ozuna came burdened with a qualifying offer and its attendant draft pick penalty might have been just enough to separate the two players; the pick the Braves surrendered was a late-third-rounder due to signing Will Smith earlier in free agency. Read the rest of this entry »

Next week, the Dolan family, owners of the Cleveland Indians, are being honored with a lifetime achievement award at the Greater Cleveland Sports Awards. The criteria for determining the winner of that particular prize is vague; it usually goes to a retired player. The Dolans are the only ownership group to have won it.

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The Cincinnati Reds are a proud franchise in the midst of a tough run. A small market team in one of the league’s smallest cities, they’ve posted a losing record in each of the past six years. They haven’t won a playoff series in 30. TV ratings are solid — nothing attracts more eyeballs on a summer night in Cincinnati than Reds baseball — but fans haven’t had much to cheer lately. Franchise icon Joey Votto appears to be playing out the string. The Reds, even in a mediocre division, were buried in fourth place last season.

The Cleveland Indians are also a proud franchise, and they’re on a splendid run. They too are a small market team in one of the league’s smallest cities. But they’ve been plucky. The Tribe have notched seven consecutive winning seasons, and were a game away from a championship back in 2016. TV ratings are robust, the second-highest in all of baseball. Promising young players line the roster and shortstop Francisco Lindor is one of the game’s precious few superstars. The Indians missed the playoffs last season, but were relevant into the season’s final week and entered the winter with plenty of talent on hand.

So far this winter, Cincinnati has spent $100 million on Mike Moustakas, Wade Miley, and Shogo Akiyama. Cleveland has spent less than $10 million and dealt Corey Kluber for a reliever and an extra outfielder. Read the rest of this entry »

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Cincinnati Reds.

Batters

Cincinnati’s 2020 offense will likely prove to be an interesting challenge for second-year manager David Bell. There’s the potential for a good offense here, but there’s an equal number of scenarios in which the team simply fails to score runs. Outside of Eugenio Suárez, the incumbent third baseman who I’m still amazed was purloined for Alfredo Simon, practically every player in the lineup has a real upside but also, significant questions about a major aspect of their game.

Does Joey Votto have another comeback season left in him? Votto has had downswings before, but the swoons were never anywhere near as deep his .261/.357/.411 line in 2019. 2020 will also be his age-36 season, which isn’t exactly a point in a career where you see many players come roaring back after a collapse. ZiPS does forecast a moderate 2020 recovery, but Votto the Star may be permanently in the rear-view mirror.

The outfield is a particularly devious puzzle to solve as rather than having two or three outfielders who are head-and-shoulders above the rest, the team has a large collection of average-ish players with wildly varying skillsets. They’re a bit like a giant vat of Legos in which the Star Wars set, the Raiders of the Lost Ark set, and the Requiem for a Dream set have all been tossed together, with some scattered Erector parts thrown in; you’re just trying to build a nice little house but keep finding lightsabers and fedoras. Read the rest of this entry »