What makes Andrew Miller so good? There’s a variety of contributing reasons — there’s the velocity, the fastball, the slider, the delivery, the body, the mentality, and so on and so on. Every part of Miller comes together to make him nearly perfect. But, what’s the mechanism? What’s the statistical explanation for Miller’s dominance? In essence, he warps the hitter’s idea of the strike zone. Hitters don’t swing at many strikes, and they swing at too many balls. They have the statistical discipline of bad-hitting pitchers.

So far this season, Miller has gotten opponents to swing at pitches out of the zone 43% of the time. Once again, that’s super high — by O-Swing%, Miller ranks second in baseball. There’s one guy in front of him. That one guy is Anthony Swarzak?

Sure, why not. It’s 31-year-old journeyman and minor-league-contract acquisition Anthony Swarzak, pitching out of the White Sox bullpen. I’ve already written about how Tommy Kahnle is overachieving. Now here’s Swarzak, too, basically out of nowhere. I’ve got a plot for you.

That’s Swarzak in red. Compared to last year, his O-Swing% against has improved by 14 percentage points, and his Contact% against has improved by 15 percentage points. So Swarzak is way, way out there, having now adjusted well to full-time relief. Let me take that back; Swarzak has mostly relieved for a while. First he was a starter. Then he was a swingman. Last year, with the Yankees, Swarzak for the first time dramatically increased his slider rate, overtaking his number of fastballs. Swarzak has kept that up in 2017. The difference this time around is in location. The Yankees got Swarzak to change his pitch mix rather aggressively. The White Sox have gotten Swarzak to focus on one specific area around the plate.

From Baseball Savant:

Last season, Swarzak threw 63% of his pitches to the glove-side half, which was one of the higher rates around. This season, Swarzak has thrown 85% of his pitches to the glove-side half, which ties him for the highest rate in the league. The next-closest pitcher trails by more than 10 percentage points. Swarzak works righties away, all the time. He works lefties inside, all the time. He throws his fastball to the glove-side, and he throws his slider to the glove-side. His locations have gotten precise, and consistent, and hitters haven’t really known what to do.

In January, Anthony Swarzak was basically nothing. I’m going to guess he signed with the White Sox because he figured there he stood a better chance of getting a big-league opportunity. He was right! And for a month and a half he’s been one of baseball’s more effective relievers. I don’t know what to tell you. This is our shared reality. How about Anthony Swarzak?

Did you know that the A’s lead the American League in home runs? Here’s one of them:

Here’s another one of them:

Those are two mammoth home runs. More, those are two mammoth home runs hit by the same guy — one Chad Pinder. Pinder is a 25-year-old infielder who’s topped out as Baseball America’s No. 7 Oakland prospect. In Pinder’s best professional season to date, he went deep 15 times. He’s gone deep four times over his last six big-league starts.

Pinder clearly has pretty good power. Keep that in the back of your mind. There are nearly 1,700 players with at least 50 batted balls in each of the last two seasons, including both the minors and the majors. Here are the 10 players with the biggest drops in ground-ball rate:

Whole bunch of minor leaguers. One Alex Avila out in front, about whom Dave just wrote. Avila has dropped his grounder rate by a stunning 30 percentage points, and that’s insane, but it’s also insane that Pinder is in ninth, having dropped his own grounder rate by 21 points. Pinder’s year-to-year track record:

• 2013: 41% grounders
• 2014: 46%
• 2015: 48%
• 2016: 42%
• 2017: 21%

One of those stands out from the others, and although it’s still early, and although things can still shift, what’s remarkable is remarkable. Suddenly, Pinder looks like he’s become an extreme fly-ball hitter. There’s power there to back it up. You know how Yonder Alonso has dramatically changed his own batting profile? His grounder rate is down by 19 points. Pinder has slightly bested that.

And oh, hey, Statcast. Out of everyone in the majors with at least 30 batted balls this season, Pinder ranks second — second! — in average exit velocity. He ranks fifth in average air-ball exit velocity. He ranks seventh in rate of batted balls hit at least 95 miles per hour. Pinder has hit nine so-called “Barrels”, which ties him with, say, Carlos Correa and Anthony Rizzo, and Pinder hasn’t played very much. He’s basically insisting that he gets noticed.

So, consider him noticed. How far this goes, I can’t tell you. Dramatic early-season shifts don’t always reflect legitimate changes in true talent. Yet Pinder is off to a promising start, and just to the eye, his swing is quite pleasing. The A’s could have something here. The A’s could have something terrific.

Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Bryan Reynolds, OF, San Francisco (Profile)
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 3   Top 100: HM
Line: 5-for-6, 2B, 3B

Notes
After a hot start, Reynolds cooled off and was hitting a shade under .260 as Sunday’s action began. That’s somewhat concerning for a big-school college hitter in the Cal League. San Jose is one of the few pitcher-friendly (barely) parks in that league and Reynolds’ home/road splits are evocative of that: his OPS is .541 at home and a .913 on the road.

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The season opened with a curious experiment that saw the Cardinals playing Matt Adams in left field. Adams is a large human being who, till this year, had been a first baseman — and, well, the whole left-field experiment didn’t go particularly well. Due to Matt Carpenter’s presence at first, Adams entered the weekend with just 53 plate appearances to his name — plate appearances in which he’d hit fairly well, but without his usual power.

It’s possible that some regular playing time could get Adams back to his old ways. The Atlanta Braves will be the ones to find out, as they traded for him on Saturday to fill in for the injured Freddie Freeman. Freeman had been playing like a superstar before being hit by a pitch and fracturing his wrist.

It’s a devastating blow to a Braves team that already wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry, but you can do a lot worse for a replacement than Adams.

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The Toronto Blue Jays have reportedly called up 22-year-old outfielder Anthony Alford from Double-A. It’s an aggressive promotion, albeit likely a temporary one. The organization’s No. 2-rated prospect would be filling a void created by Kevin Pillar’s suspension and an injury to Darrell Ceciliani.

Regardless of the duration of his stay, Alford has a bright future with Canada’s team. The former Ole Miss football player augments his athleticism with outstanding baseball instincts. In 141 plate appearances for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Alford was slashing .325/.411/.455, with three home runs and nine stolen bases in 10 attempts.

Gil Kim, Toronto’s director of player development, gave a snapshot rundown on the newest Blue Jay.

“Alford has made huge strides,” Kim told me earlier today.” He was a two-sport athlete, and I believe 2015 is the first year he fully committed to baseball. When you combine his character, makeup, and natural ability, and factor in the inexperience, I’m comfortable saying he’ll make quicker advances than most. He’s coming into his own, just focusing on baseball. He had a 2016 season that saw him progressively improve. He carried that into the AFL, and he’s obviously doing a very good job now in Double-A.”

Kim proceeded to double down on his opinion of Alford’s character.

“I can’t speak more highly of character and makeup in our organization than Anthony Alford. He’s an impressive human being. He’s going to be a very successful major-league baseball player, and he’s already a successful human being. If you talk to our field coordinator, Eric Wedge, or Angus Mugford, our high-performance director, Ben Cherington, Ross Atkins, Mark Shapiro — as we strive to create the culture, and environment, of what a Toronto Blue Jays player is, Anthony Alford is off the charts. He’s impressive, man.”

Position: Seattle Mariners Performance Analytics Internship

Location: Safeco Field, Seattle WA

Description:

We are seeking an individual with a passion for baseball and statistical analysis. The position will work directly alongside the analytics team with an emphasis on sports science. There will be ample opportunity to impact decision-making. Start and end dates are flexible with a preference towards immediate availability.

Responsibilities:

• Statistical modeling and analysis of a variety of data sources including Statcast and proprietary data sets
• Ad hoc queries and quantitative research
• Various game-day duties and support for all departments within Baseball Operations

Qualifications:

• A strong foundation in mathematics, statistics, computer science and/or engineering.
• Demonstrated competency with either R or Python
• Track record of original baseball research
• Experience with pitch level data, hit vector data, sports science data
• Experience with predictive modeling

While many candidates are no doubt capable, we desire a skillset that can impact, innovate and add value immediately.

Compensation:
This position is compensated.

To Apply:
To apply, please follow this link.

Well, this sucks. In the midst of a season that looked like it was going to take the Braves first baseman from one of the better hitters in baseball to one of the elite players in the game, Freddie Freeman has hit a roadblock. Or rather, been hit by one. An Aaron Loup fastball in the fifth inning of last night’s game got Freeman in the arm, and today, it’s been reported that an MRI revealed a broken wrist, which will sideline the star first baseman for at least the next couple of months.

Source: #Braves’ Freeman has a fractured left wrist. Expectation is that he will miss at least eight weeks.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) May 18, 2017

This is obviously a huge blow to the Braves, as Freeman was carrying the team on his back. Even with Freeman running a 204 wRC+ to this point, the Braves still had just a 94 wRC+, and without a real backup first baseman on the team, it’s not entirely clear who will replace him in the line-up. The Braves official site lists Jace Peterson as the team’s backup 1B, but he’s now playing third while Adonis Garcia is on the DL. Nick Markakis has played some first base before, but the team isn’t exactly overflowing with outfielders as it is, so then you’re looking at someone like Danny Santana replacing the team’s best hitter for two months.

While the Braves probably weren’t going to be contenders this year, this is a huge blow to their chances to even hang around for the rest of the summer. For a team looking to infuse some optimism into the fanbase with the opening of a new stadium, this is pretty close to the worst news they could receive.

Hopefully, for the Braves and the game’s sake, Freeman comes back to full health for the last few months of the year. Freeman’s at-bats were becoming appointment viewing, and the summer just got a little less interesting for baseball as a whole, and a lot less interesting for fans in Atlanta.

Daily notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Walker Buehler, RHP, Los Angeles NL (Profile)
Level: Double-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 5   Top 100: 74
Line: 3.2 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K

Notes
Buehler made five dominant but abbreviated starts at High-A, never superseding the 65-pitch mark. He was then shut down for 10 days before earning a promotion to Double-A. He’s been sitting 95-99 all spring with a plus-plus, hammer curveball and a hard slider/cutter anywhere from 87-91. He’s very athletic, balanced, and always appears in control of his body despite the high-effort nature of his delivery. He throws all three pitches for strikes. He has the stuff and enough polish to pitch in the big leagues this year in a multi-inning bullpen role — and, if his usage and early-season inning management is any indication, the Dodgers seem to think so, too.

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This winter, we saw a number of free agent first baseman hit the market, and then promptly get rejected en masse. Edwin Encarnacion was looking for $100 million, and then took $60 million after his market collapsed. Mark Trumbo apparently wanted $80 million; he signed for $37.5 million. Quality veterans like Brandon Moss and Mike Napoli signed for fractions of what similar players had in prior off-seasons. Pedro Alvarez got a minor league deal to try to play outfield, after no one wanted him as their first baseman.

Overnight, the game seemingly shifted from highly valuing one dimensional sluggers to thinking they were fungible assets. At the end of January, this trend led me to wonder why so many contenders were willing to punt first base, and speculate that maybe teams were willing to put up with less offense from the traditional slugging position because it was so easy to find offense at other positions now.

After all, first baseman as a group were coming off one of their weakest offensive performances of all time. With shifting hurting so many slow left-handed sluggers, perhaps we were just transitioning away from first base as a dominant offensive position.

Yeah, about that.

After running a 110 wRC+ last year, players playing first base — this data is offensive performance while actually playing the position, not just guys who qualify as 1Bs on the leaderboard — 1Bs are up to 122 this year, which would be the highest mark of any year where we have split-by-position data. And not surprisingly, given the home run surge, it’s almost all because of a power spike.

1Bs have a collective .225 ISO this year, up from .194 last year. That number had bottomed out at .170 in 2014, but the power has come storming back this year; 1Bs haven’t had an ISO over .200 since 2009, when it was .206.

And this isn’t a Bonds-lifting-the-LF-baseline situation; almost every 1B in baseball is hitting this year. 30 different players have 70+ PAs while playing first base; 10 of them are running a wRC+ of 140 or higher. 23 of the 30 have a wRC+ over 100. And this is with Miguel Cabrera, Anthony Rizzo, and Carlos Santana struggling in the early part of the season.

In their stead, guys we didn’t think were going to hit that well — Ryan Zimmerman, Yonder Alonso, Mark Reynolds, Justin Smoak, and Logan Morrison — are all crushing the ball. And besides Miggy and Rizzo, the upper-tier guys are hitting the ball like few others in baseball. Freddie Freeman and Paul Goldschmidt remain monsters. Joey Votto has figured out how to stop striking out, apparently. Matt Carpenter has gone fully Jose Bautista. And yeah, Eric Thames is still a thing.

Naturally, some of these guys are going to regress. Maybe a few of the Alonso/Smoak/Zimmerman crowd have figured out some way to sustainably hit at a much higher level than they have previously, but a lot of what is propping up first base offense right now is mediocre hitters performing at a high level. That won’t last forever.

But after a winter in which the first base position essentially had a public funeral, the position has come roaring back to life this year. First base, it turns out, is still a power position.

Yesterday, I published a post comparing and contrasting the virtues of a pair of NL left fielders, Kyle Schwarber and Aaron Altherr. They are pretty different kinds of players, but to this point, their career numbers are very similar, and I thought it was an interesting question to consider which of the two you’d rather have going forward.

At the end of the post, I included a series of three polls, asking you to select a range for your view of the future expected performance for both players, as well as asking you to pick which one you’d rather have going forward. The results of those polls should something very close to a down-the-middle split.

When it came down to pick a side, Schwarber won 54/46, so there’s a slight edge to the bat-first, longer track record guy, but it certainly wasn’t any kind of blowout. And when you look at the expected performance buckets, it seems that Schwarber’s slight edge comes down to perceived upside.

A plurality of voters picked the +2 to +3 WAR bucket for both players, with 49% of Altherr’s votes going in that category, compared to 48% of Schwarber’s. There was a pretty large block of you guys that agreed that these guys are both above-average players, but not quite reaching star levels.

The +3 to +4 WAR bucket was the second most common choice for both players, and here, Schwarber pulled ahead slightly, 34% to 30%. Then it was +1 to +2 WAR, with Altherr getting 14% of his votes in that bin versus 9% for Schwarber. +4 to +5 WAR went 6% to 4% for Schwarber, and then +5 or better went 3% to 2% for Schwarber.

So overall, 43% of voters saw Schwarber as a +3 WAR or better player, the legitimate star that he’s been hyped up to be since being taken #4 overall. Only 37% of voters saw Altherr at that same level, and those who weren’t willing to put him in that category didn’t shift to the +2 to +3 WAR category, but instead, saw him as a role player, a fringe starter, effectively not buying into his 2017 performance as a significant indicator of change.

Essentially, the votes indicate that, while similar, you guys see a slightly higher upside with Schwarber. I’m guessing some of those higher-upside votes came from the idea that a new team could use him at first base, and his defensive limitations in left field would go away if Anthony Rizzo wasn’t standing in his way of the position he’s likely best suited for. If you think Schwarber could play a reasonable 1B and hit at a 130 or 140 wRC+ level, then yeah, that +4 to +5 WAR level is definitely reachable.

Altherr’s path to stardom in left field is easier; he just has to hit at a 120 to 130 wRC+ level, and his athleticism should carry the rest of the skillset. But while it was close, it appears that a few more of you buy into Schwarber hitting at a higher level, or changing positions, than see Altherr hitting at that level.