I first saw Jeff Hoffman pitch in February of 2014, when he was a junior at East Carolina, and thought I was seeing the guy who would later go first overall in that June’s draft. Hoffman was electric, sitting 92-96 mph, touching 98 and showing feel for four pitches on a chilly, late-winter’s day in Virginia. Best amateur slider I’ve ever seen aside, Hoffman was better than Carlos Rodon that spring in every way and likely would have demanded consideration for the top overall selection (which eventually became Brady Aiken) in a class full of prospects with question marks up top.
But Hoffman broke. He had Tommy John in May of 2014. It was the second year in a row (Lucas Giolito) that the draft’s most talented right-handed arm was injured. The situation was a precarious one for Hoffman. If the injury torpedoed his stock, it would be hard for him to thumb his nose at the team that drafted him and return to school because, even with an aggressive recovery from TJ, he’d only be able to make a couple of starts as a senior before the 2015 draft and maybe not pitch at all. Alas, the Blue Jays saw the opportunity to grab a top-three talent at pick #9 and signed him for slot value, $3.1 million.
It’s been observed before we don’t write that much about the Rockies. Now, this is one of those things that works both ways — we could probably stand to write about them more, but there also hasn’t been much in the way of demand. Mostly, I’d say it’s the Rockies’ fault, since people want to read about and write about winners. The Rockies haven’t won. When we have written about them, many of the posts have been examining that.
But I can say this much: For the first time in years, I like where the Rockies are headed. The sense I get is they’re close to a return to being competitive. Over the past month or two, I’ve been paying the Rockies extra attention out of curiosity, and that’s given me reason to write now about Charlie Blackmon. I know this year’s Rockies aren’t going to the playoffs. I know Blackmon’s will never be a household name. But the guy just won the National League player of the week award. He also leads all players in WAR in the half-month of August. So far this month, Blackmon has out-homered the Astros, and his surge has come from zeroing in on a hot spot.
There’s only one Clayton Kershaw. Comparing a pitcher at any level — amateur, minors, majors — to Clayton Kershaw is a terrible, awful, no good, very bad idea. Presumably there will be another generational pitching talent at some point in the future and, when that future ace posts Kershavian stats over the course of multiple seasons, maybe we can start having that discussion. Maybe. Until then, do not make Kershaw comps. In fact, let’s call that The First Rule of Kershaw: no comps.
Alright, with all that out of the way, let’s have some fun comparing a pitcher to Clayton Kershaw… Look, I stand by The First Rule of Kershaw fully, but I’m also partial to this crazy theory that baseball is fun. We’re all smart enough here to recognize that players who aren’t comparable on a macro level can still have similarities at the micro level. So I’m going to ask you to turn off that beautifully analytical portion of your brain for just a moment, sit back, and watch two pitchers.
I know it’s been much too long, but here’s a reminder of what Clayton Kershaw looks like when he throws a baseball:
Full disclosure bordering on sacrilege: there’s a part of me that doesn’t love watching Kershaw pitch. I feel like a monster even admitting such a thing but, well, look at that delivery. It’s herky, jerky and doesn’t live up to my ideal of what an elite pitching motion should look like. But that’s my problem, not Kershaw’s. He’s a generational talent and that’s what this generational talent looks like when he pitches.
There’s a bad joke that we throw around when an older player signs — that he brings with him veteran presents. In the modern clubhouse, though, it’s unclear how much this sort of thing matters. There’s a lot of putting your head down and working on your craft — or keeping your nose out of other players’ business, at least. But then you get the odd story here or there where a veteran comes in and helps a young man develop, and you wonder if the jokes are misplaced.
Like this story about Jon Gray. He was a man with a fastball and a slider, searching for something that would expand his arsenal. The curve was promising, but less effective in Colorado. “Then I talked to [Adam] Ottavino about the slider,” the 24-year-old Rockies starter told me earlier this year, “and I started manipulating it differently in different situations.” Look at that: tangible veteran presents, from a player who just last year told us about his ability to alter his slider to battle lefties.
I recently got to check back in with Gray about that slider manipulation. He was fresh off a rejuvenating bullpen session in San Francisco and had even better feelings about his changeup. And his curve. Now we look up and, in his last start, on Wednesday against the Orioles, he actually used both his curve and change 10% of the time… and it was the third time he’d done so all season. Looks like Gray has found a few more pitches that he trusts.
On Sunday, news broke that the Rockies were ready to call up top prospect David Dahl following his 2016 minor-league stints at both Double-A and Triple-A, both of which were incredibly successful. For a prospect who looked to be thrown off his fast track last year thanks to a spleen injury, the news is joyous for Rockies fans. The high-school standout reaches the majors in his fifth professional season, which in the grand scheme of things, isn’t really that far off course.
I think Dahl will be a monster, but don’t take my word for it: read what Eric and Chris have to say about him. As cool as Dahl’s promotion is for the Rockies, it wasn’t his actual promotion that was the most interesting tidbit to come out of his news report. The Rockies, 7-3 since the All-Star break at the time of his call-up (and now 7-4 following a loss last night), suddenly are not yet ready to give up on 2016. Per Thomas Harding of MLB.com:
The callup comes with the Rockies challenging themselves to become a contender. They are 47-51, six games back in the National League Wild Card race.
The Rockies wake up this morning in sixth place for a National League wild-card berth, behind the Dodgers, Mets, Marlins, Cardinals and Pirates, whom they trail by 4.5 games. The Rockies are sort of floating in their own tier, as they have a bit of separation between themselves and the next team in the queue (the Phillies at 8.0 games back).
Before debuting yesterday for Colorado, 22-year-old outfielder David Dahl had recorded a smooth .307/.389/.562 between Double-A and Triple-A this year, including a torrid .456/.508/.886 showing in his short stint at Triple-A. Dahl possesses an exciting combination of power and speed. The former 10th-overall pick belted 18 homers in the minors this year while also swiping 17 bases. Dahl’s 20-plus-homer power is a relatively new addition to his skill set, but it’s not as though he hasn’t shown glimpses of it before.
Dahl has plenty going for him in the power and speed departments, but his strikeout numbers are some cause for concern. He whiffed in 25% of his plate appearances in Double-A last year, and didn’t really improve in that area this season. Much this year’s improvement can be traced back to his sky-high .388 BABIP, while the underlying contact issues linger.
Dwelling on Dahl’s contact rates almost feels like nitpicking, however, especially since his strikeout numbers are trending in the right direction. All in all, Dahl has an awful lot going for him. Whether you look at his stat line or his scouting reports (such as the one published today by Eric Longenhagen), it’s very easy to envision him sticking as a quality everyday center fielder.
My newly revamped KATOH projection system is a big believer in Dahl. My stats-only model rates him as the #12 prospect in baseball, while my KATOH+ model — which also integrates Baseball America’s prospect rankings — placed him at #14. They foresee 9.0 WAR and 11.1 WAR, respectively, over Dahl’s next six seasons.
Outfielder David Dahl’s (dahl?) ascent to the major leagues, at which level he debuted last night for Colorado, has been relatively swift considering he missed just about all of 2013 with a hamstring injury and a huge chunk of 2015 with a ruptured spleen. That missed development time — in concert with Colorado’s unenviable affiliate situation — has made Dahl difficult to evaluate and project. In four pro seasons, Dahl has spent time with clubs in Grand Junction, CO; Asheville, NC; Modesto, CA; Boise, ID; New Britain, CT; Hartford, CT (but not actually in Hartford because that club doesn’t actually currently possess a home park); and Albuquerque, NM.
Pro scouts with area- or league-based coverage had a difficult time getting in-depth looks at Dahl because of the unusually nomadic nature of his career. His tools haven’t been difficult to evaluate (and they’re impressive), but what has been hard to grasp are Dahl’s secondary skills. He came into this season with a career walk rate around 5%, but Dahl has doubled that this season and it’s hard to discern if those improvements are real.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument and in effort to discern his floor, that Dahl’s newfound plate discipline is a mirage. Steamer has him regressing to a walk rate just shy of 6%. We’re still talking about a plus runner with a plus arm (his throw to nail Josh Naylor at the plate in the Futures Game was particularly impressive) who projects as a plus defender in center field. Impact defense at a premium position is often sufficient to justify playing everyday, even if the bat is light. Punchless though they may be, black-hole center fielders like Ender Inciarte (.242/.309/.319), Billy Hamilton (.251/.299/.351) and Kevin Pillar (.259/.390/.382) are all comfortably above replacement level this season. Dahl’s defense, though not on the elite level of Hamilton and Pillar, is strong enough that the offensive bar he’ll need to clear to play every day is relatively low.
Dahl sports plus bat speed and good bat control, but his ability to hit is undermined by some of the effort in his swing and inconsistent pitch-tracking. His swing can get long at times because of how early he extends his hands, which causes some tardiness. I’ve also gotten some reports that question Dahl’s ability to hit anything on the outer half with authority, though he’s adept at taking those pitches to the opposite field and his bat path aids in that. There’s above-average pull power here — and it will undoubtedly play up in Denver. It just remains to be seen how much of it Dahl will get to if I’m correct about his swing-and-miss issues.
If you woke up this morning, looked at the WAR Leaderboards for position players and saw Mike Trout, Jose Altuve, and Manny Machado near the top, you might have had an inclination that all is right with the world. After all, those three players are some of the very best in major-league baseball, and we would expect to see them at the top of the list. Of course, when you look closely at the leaderboard, it’s important to note that there are 171 qualified players. To regard the WAR marks as some sort of de facto ranking for all players would be foolish. For some players, defensive value has a large impact on their WAR total, and it’s important, when considering WAR values one-third of the way into the season, to consider the context in which those figures.
“Small sample size” is a phrase that’s invoked a lot throughout the season. At FanGraphs, we try to determine what might be a small-sample aberration from what could be a new talent level. Generally speaking, the bigger the sample size, the better — and this is especially true for defensive statistics, where we want to have a very big sample to determine a player’s talent level. Last year, I attempted to provide a warning on the reliability of defensive statistics. Now that the season has reached its third month, it’s appropriate to revisit that work.
The first read of Trevor Story’s split stats produces an easy narrative. In April, he recorded a .988 OPS due (in part) to ridiculous, unsustainable power. Since then, his OPS has been under .800, with half as many homers. The league adjusted to him, and he didn’t adjust back. Simple enough.
Of course it’s much more complicated than that in reality, at least in terms of what’s happening on the field. To the player, it’s simple.
Jeff Sullivan documented a stark adjustment that the league made to the Rockies’ shortstop after that huge first week. They stopped throwing him inside because he showed he could pull those pitches for homers.
“A lot of people don’t pitch inside, I don’t think,” said Story about that first week, framing that first week as the anomaly, which might come as a surprise. “Some teams do, and some teams don’t.”
Jon Gray had one of his best starts of the season on Sunday. The Colorado Rockies right-hander fanned 12 while limiting the Padres to two runs over seven innings. It was his third straight solid outing following a a nine-run dud against the Cardinals on May 19.
A few days after his St. Louis shelling, the 24-year-old University of Oklahoma product threw a pre-game bullpen session at Fenway Park. On his way back to the clubhouse, he stopped in the outfield grass and conferred with his pitching coach, occasionally mimicking his pitching motion.
After the confab concluded, I approached him to ask what they’d been working on. I had other questions in mind as well. I’d interviewed Gray a few months after he was taken third overall in the 2013 draft, and a lot of development had occurred since that time. A follow-up was in order.
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Gray on his development and needing to stay in sync: “There’s a lot more to this game than it might seem. You’re constantly making adjustments in order to compete. I’ve done a lot of things with my delivery, as well as mentally. You have to make adjustments a lot faster at this level. If I know something isn’t right in my delivery, I have to change it as soon as possible, otherwise it’s going to get bad. Same thing mentally. I have to really keep tabs on myself, with each pitch, each approach.
