Daily Notes: Regarding Alex Wood’s Resume, Thus Far
Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of the Daily Notes.
1. Regarding Alex Wood’s Resume, Thus Far
2. Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
3. Today’s Complete Schedule
Regarding Alex Wood’s Resume, Thus Far
Introduction
Left-hander Alex Wood, 22, starts tonight (Saturday) against Miami at 7:10pm ET. What follows is a brief examination of his impressive, if short, professional resume.
Alex Wood, How He Was Acquired
Wood was selected by Atlanta in the second round of last year’s (2012’s) draft out of the University of Georgia, where he recorded a 79:25 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 101.1 innings his (red-shirt) freshman year and a 100:21 mark in 102.1 innings his sophomore year. He’s one of only five players* from his draft class, it appears, to have made his major-league debut.
*The other four: Kevin Gausman (Baltimore), Paco Rodriguez (Los Angelels NL), Michael Wacha (St. Louis), and Mike Zunino (Seattle).
Alex Wood, Statistically
Wood has been excellent at every professional level at which he’s competed. After the draft last year, he was assigned to Class-A Rome, where he was excellent (52.2 IP, 25.2% K, 6.8% BB). He began this season with Double-A Mississippi, where he was excellent (57.0 IP, 25.1% K, 6.6% BB). Were one to suppose that, following his promotion to the Braves that Wood was excellent, one would be correct in that assumption, as well. In 39.1 innings, he’s recorded strikeout and walk rates of 26.0% and 8.2%, respectively, while also inducing grounders on 56.4% of batted balls — leading to his current 70 xFIP- and 0.8 WAR.
Alex Wood, His Repertoire
As the PITCHf/x chart below (featuring speed and horizontal movement) reveals, Wood has thrown three different this season: a fastball at 89-95 mph; a changeup at 82-86 mph; and a curve at 76-84 mph (and averaging 81 mph).
Alex Wood, His Changeup
Wood’s changeup, which he throws about four times as often to right-handed, as opposed to left-handed, batters, has been his best pitch both by linear-weight runs relative to average (+3.7) and swinging-strike rate (21.5%).
Action Footage: Alex Wood’s Changeup
Here’s footage from a recent Colorado-Atlanta game of Wood throwing his changeup for a swinging strike to Troy Tulowitzki:
Action Footage: Alex Wood’s Changeup
Here’s footage from later in that same contest of Wood throwing his changeup for a swinging strike — in this case, to DJ LeMahieu:
Regarding Alex Wood, How Many Arms He Appears to Have While Pitching
Ten or 12 arms, looks like.
Today’s MLB.TV Free Game
Texas at Houston | 19:10 ET
Derek Holland (155.0 IP, 86 xFIP-, 4.5 WAR) faces Brad Peacock (36.0 IP, 125 xFIP-, -0.6 WAR). Per CoolStandings, the former club presently has a 75% probability of making the postseason. Per that same site, the latter club (i.e. Houston) has slightly less encouraging prospects.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Texas Radio.
Today’s Complete Schedule
Here’s the complete schedule for all of today’s games, with our very proprietary watchability (NERD) scores for each one. Pitching probables and game times aggregated from MLB.com and RotoWire. The average NERD Game Score for today is 5.3.
Note: the following table is entirely sortable.
| Away | SP | Tm. | Gm. | Tm. | SP | Home | Time | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anibal Sanchez | DET | 9 | 8 | 6 | 3 | 4 | NYA | Phil Hughes | 13:05 |
| Sonny Gray* | OAK | 8 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 4 | TOR | Mark Buehrle | 13:07 |
| Wei-Yin Chen | BAL | 3 | 9 | 4 | 5 | 4 | SF | Chad Gaudin | 16:05 |
| Mike Pelfrey | MIN | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 6 | CHA | Andre Rienzo* | 16:05 |
| R. Hernandez | TB | 6 | 10 | 6 | 3 | 5 | LAN | Zack Greinke | 16:05 |
| C.J. Wilson | LAA | 5 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 3 | CLE | Ubaldo Jimenez | 19:05 |
| Cliff Lee | PHI | 9 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 6 | WAS | Taylor Jordan | 19:05 |
| Felix Doubront | BOS | 4 | 8 | 4 | 6 | 2 | KC | Jeremy Guthrie | 19:10 |
| Nathan Eovaldi | MIA | 6 | 2 | 7 | 8 | 10 | ATL | Alex Wood | 19:10 |
| Tyson Ross | SD | 6 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 7 | CIN | Tony Cingrani | 19:10 |
| Derek Holland | TEX | 9 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 1 | HOU | Brad Peacock | 19:10 |
| Carlos Villanueva | CHN | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 7 | STL | Michael Wacha* | 19:15 |
| Zack Wheeler | NYN | 3 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 6 | AZ | B. McCarthy | 20:10 |
| A.J. Burnett | PIT | 8 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 4 | COL | Juan Nicasio | 20:10 |
| Tom Gorzelanny | MIL | 6 | 3 | 6 | 5 | 7 | SEA | Hisashi Iwakuma | 21:10 |
To learn how Pitcher and Team NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
To learn how Game NERD Scores are calculated, click here.
* = Fewer than 20 IP, NERD at discretion of very handsome author.
Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.
Martinez? You mean Wood?
Great young pitcher, though… the Braves are STACKED.
Indeed, I meant Wood. Duly edited. Thanks for the note.
Wood…STACKED
works much better than “Martinez…STACKED”
I have seen some of his starts and I have not been impressed, I think the 2nd time throught the league after the scouting reports are done on him will define whether he is ready
How could you not be impressed with him? He was pitching at Georgia last year and is already succeeding at the major league level. That is extremely impressive.
If you showed Alex Wood’s windup to the point he released the ball, someone not familiar with him would be forgiven for thinking: (1) that boy has never played baseball before in his life; or, (2) Alex Wood is right-handed and is just trying to throw with his left hand in this footage.
Or there’s just some great music playing at the stadium and he’s busting a move.
While pitching.
Maybe he’s a big Ubaldo Jimenez fan?
I really like Wood
Nice use of the green text. +1
I’m kinda surprised Doubront is only a 4. He’s pitched pretty well and is just 25 years old, though I guess his average velocity and higher-than-average pace hurt him.
Doubront certainly has had some 6+ appearances. But he’s pitching like a 2 today. Consider 4 an average…
In Portuguese.
Your NERD discretion needs an adjustment for romahnce, Cistulli.
Where is the forum where we get to discuss Alex Remington’s article?
He wrote a well-reasoned piece on an underreported issue, and the unfortunate response of a minority of people made the comments unpostable. I understand the reasoning behind the decision to disable comments on the article. But it’s a decision that doesn’t end there.
The nature of this site has been to eliminate ignorance with the blinding light of truth. Ignorance showed up prominently on Remington’s piece, and you decided to eliminate it with the delete button.
Fangraphs was not born to be a forum for race relations. I understand that. It is a place to discuss baseball issues, analyzed objectively, written eloquently. Unfortunately for you, and more unfortunately for baseball, Remington hit on a real baseball issue.
We, as baseball fans, need a place to discuss this. We flock here because you write what we want to read, and we want to stay to debate what we’ve heard. Like the last 60 plate appearances shouldn’t define a player, the most recent comments shouldn’t define a readership. Give us the opportunity to talk.
The one thing you can be sure of is that we’ll keep discussing every controversial issue. The last thing you can be sure of is that we’ll do it here. Let us talk.
>Remington hit on a real baseball issue
Nah, I think he imagined an issue where one doesn’t exist.
I don’t think it was the talk more so than the blatantly racist comments posted for shock value that kept appearing.
It’s the internet. Downvote them and move on.
you forgot to mention Michael Roth who has also made his ML debut