On Monday, the Rangers gave up a pretty hefty haul to acquire the rights to Matt Garza. With so many teams out of the race not selling, the prices that the few teams giving up talent can charge is very high, and so despite Garza’s impending free agency, the Cubs did very well in their return for a few months of a good-not-great pitcher. With Garza off the market, the teams hunting for starting pitching will likely now turn their attention to Jake Peavy.

Peavy doesn’t have quite same reputation as Garza does, and he probably won’t command the same kind of return. But if we actually stop and compare the two, it’s hard to make a case that Garza was the jewel of the summer and Peavy is simply a fallback plan for those who missed out on the big prize. In fact, the evidence actually suggests that Peavy might just be the better acquisition.

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The last time I wrote about Edge% it was in the context of the Tampa Bay Rays using it to get their pitchers into more favorable counts on 1-1. But now I want to take that topic and drill a little deeper to understand how often edge pitches are taken for called strikes.

Overall, pitches taken on the edge are called strikes 69% of the time. But that aggregate measure hides some pretty substantial differences. Going further on that idea, I wanted to see how the count impacts the likelihood of a pitch on the edge being called a strike.

Here are the results:

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Something you might not have heard from the past few days is that Micah Owings became a free agent. Owings opted out of his contract with the Washington Nationals, and the Nats granted him his release. Something you probably did hear from the last few days is that Casper Wells pitched in relief. Wells wasn’t the only recent-days position player on the mound, but Wells didn’t just pitch — Wells looked good. Or, all right, and good for an outfielder. The standards are quite a bit different, because only pitchers are trained to be pitchers.

In the ninth inning of a blowout between the White Sox and the Indians, Wells retired three of four batters. Mike Aviles popped out, Drew Stubbs walked, Asdrubal Cabrera whiffed and Jason Kipnis lined out to the track. Wells was the only White Sox pitcher who didn’t allow a hit, which isn’t to say he didn’t get a little lucky with the Kipnis drive. Still, what got people talking was Wells’ style. He threw hard, and he also mixed in an offspeed pitch with which Cabrera was neatly put away. Read the rest of this entry »

I’d like to introduce a new feature at FanGraphs: the pitcher spotlight.  While I will continue to try to highlight unique skills or aspects of the sport in other pieces, Major League Baseball is overflowing with quality pitching and interesting prospects worth addressing.  To cover a wider range of pitchers, these posts will be a regular but relatively brief look at a pitcher’s repertoire.

This week’s subject is 24-year-old Chicago White Sox ace Chris Sale, who is fresh off a dominating 13 strikeout performance in his last start.  Sale is a deceptive low arm-slot lefty who fully utilizes his quality four pitch mix, which includes a four seam fastball, two seam fastball, slider and changeup.  Here are those offerings in the usual composite graphic with footage stabilized and synchronized to provide a relative look at their movement and velocity.

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Last Thursday, on his 37th birthday, Carlos Lee announced his retirement. Reportedly, Mariano Rivera and Bruce Chen’s fellow Panamanian wanted to keep playing if he could get a two-year deal, but no such contract was forthcoming. That was hardly surprising given Lee’s recent offensive production; .261/.321/.410 (99 wRC+) was just not all that exciting for a first baseman, especially one in his late 30s.

While in recent years Lee may have stood out as a prime example of a bad contract for a team that should have been more serious about rebuilding at the time, Lee was a good player. I doubt anyone is going to be nominating him for the Hall of Very Good, and his defense, especially in his later years, was, shall we say, not great. But Lee was a productive hitter for most of the 2000s. He was a three-time All-Star, and, as Aaron Gleeman pointed out, despite being an consistently good power hitter in his prime, he never struck out all that much, and in the first half of his career stole a surprising number of bases. Lee also stood out from among most of his contemporaries by having a legitimately cool nickname.

Lee’s career numbers are easy enough to look up, so as we often do, let’s remember him by taking a look at his three biggest hits according to Win Probability Added (WPA).

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Ah, another fortnight has passed. How did you spend them? Perhaps you were deeply immersed in the Teapot Dome scandal? Perhaps you were eagerly awaiting the release of “Yeezus?” Perhaps you were simply watching the paint dry in anticipation of the next iteration of this series? I know I was doing at least one of these things.

As always, you can peep the explanation of our depth charts and standings pages — which fuel The Fortnight like so much lemon lime Gatorade — here. This week, we’ll be looking at the fortnight’s biggest losers.

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Now that the draft is behind us and we’re only six weeks away from the trade deadline, we’re officially in rumor season. This time of year, we’ll be treated to an almost daily look at which teams might be buying or selling and what players could be changing uniforms before the end of July. The Phillies are probably the most interesting potential seller, because their roster is littered with big name players who would draw headlines if traded. Ruben Amaro has been clear that he does not intend to “blow up” the roster, but that doesn’t rule out making any trades at all, as he even noted that he didn’t think the Red Sox “blew up” their roster last year when they traded three of their most expensive players in one deal.

So, assuming the Phillies fall far enough back in the race to convince Amaro to be a seller, Jonathan Papelbon is probably going to be one of the most talked about trade targets of the summer. Contenders are always looking for bullpen help, and certain contenders — yes, Detroit, we’re talking about you — have glaring holes at the back end of their bullpen that could use a significant upgrade. Papelbon is still a terrific reliever, and his postseason track record will appeal to teams who put a lot of stock in experience in the ninth inning role.

However, I have a suggestion for any team that is considering giving up talent and taking on a good sized chunk of the roughly $34 million left on Papelbon’s deal; trade for Jesse Crain instead.

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A couple of weeks ago, you the attentive reader, will surely have observed the introduction of our depth charts and standings pages. It was a long time coming, and we remain pretty freaking excited about it. As such, we thought that every two weeks that we’d take a look at some sort of change or happening or goings-on that occurred.

We’re not going to cover every team, because let’s face it, there really is only so many times that one can write a variation of “the Marlins aren’t even trying” without wanting to scrape out your eyebones with a rusty screwdriver. But we’ll still try to pry out an objective look in some way. This week, we’ll take a look at the three biggest movers — one positive and two negative — in terms of ranking of projected full season winning percentage. (One note — the looks here are from last Tuesday, the 14th, to this morning, but in future editions we’ll likely use Monday as the cut-off day for a number of reasons, nearly all of which involve my sanity.)

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In Sports Illustrated’s 2013 baseball preview, Tom Verducci wrote a great profile of the Tampa Bay Rays and their approach to optimizing the performance of their pitching staff.

One topic that was especially interesting to me was the apparent importance the Rays place on the 1-1 count. Verducci recounts how pitching coach Jim Hickey described the organization’s focus on getting opposing batters into 1-2 counts:

The Rays believe no pitch changes the course of that at bat more than the 1-and-1 delivery. “It’s almost a 200-point swing in on-base percentage with one ball and two strikes as opposed to two balls and one strike,” Hickey told the pitchers.

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It’s hard to imagine the White Sox having a more depressing start to the season. They are stuck in last place in the American League Central, and their hitting has been abysmal. When you remove pitchers’ hitting from the equation, the White Sox wRC+ is tied for dead last in baseball with the Marlins, who are not even trying to field a competitive team. And while usually the team has fan favorite Paul Konerko to look to as a bright spot, even he has stumbled badly out of the gate. With the AL Central suddenly seeming rather competitive, the question arises — is it time for the White Sox to blow it up and sell?

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