A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the Padres’ bullpen. More specifically, it was a post about how the Padres could dismantle their bullpen around the trade deadline. I tucked something in near the bottom, but I don’t know how many of you read that post, so here I want it to stand alone. Sorry for repeating myself, if you knew I was repeating myself.

First, to establish what we’re doing: Andrew Miller’s slider is one of the best pitches in baseball, yes? Miller is one of the best pitchers in baseball, and he just threw his slider more than half of the time. Miller’s secondary pitch, in 2016, was his primary pitch. Whenever one player does something extraordinary, people wonder who’s going to be next. So, who else, if anyone, throws something like the Andrew Miller slider? There is one name that stands out.

A few years ago, I introduced pitch comps. It’s just a simple method of comparing individual pitches based on velocity, horizontal movement, and vertical movement. Long story short, I looked at all 2016 lefties who threw at least 25 sliders. I ran the math, and just one other slider earns a comp score below 1.0. Granted, that threshold is arbitrary, but it’s what we’re working with. By a good margin, the slider most similar to Andrew Miller’s belongs to Brad Hand.

Miller has a little more zip, and an inch and a half more sink (on average), but the pitches are siblings, if not quite twins. Here, you can see the pitches in action, courtesy of a perfect Tampa Bay camera angle. Thank you, Tampa Bay! Here’s Miller:

And here’s Hand:

Miller threw his slider 61% of the time. It was a strike 72% of the time, and 48% of all swing attempts missed. Hand threw his slider 31% of the time. It was a strike 61% of the time, and 53% of all swing attempts missed. But it’s worth noting that Hand threw 44% sliders over the season’s final month. His command of it improved. And why wouldn’t it have? The pitch was relatively new. Hand hardly threw sliders until 2015’s second half.

Brad Hand’s slider is not as good as Andrew Miller’s slider. Not yet. But it is a very good pitch, and a very similar pitch, and considering how new it was to Hand last season, who’s to say it couldn’t get better? There are different ways for players to succeed. Andrew Miller blazed his own trail. Brad Hand could now be following in his footsteps.

Position: OnDeck Digital Cape Cod Baseball League Video Scouting Internships

Location: Cape Cod, Mass.
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Position: Texas Rangers TrackMan Operators

Location: Kinston, N.C.; Surprise, Ariz.
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The Reds had the worst bullpen in baseball last year, right? They finished last in WAR, coming in at an unfathomable -3.6. And they finished last in RA9-WAR, coming in at a similarly unfathomable -3.1. By those measurements, last year’s Reds bullpen was historically awful. And yet! And yet, according to WPA, the Reds bullpen was only second-worst. I know that WPA is not the best evaluative tool, but in terms of what actually happened, given all the context and everything, the Reds bullpen had a WPA of -4.2. The Rockies bullpen had a WPA of -5.8.

Last year’s Rockies bullpen was one of the components that sunk the team. It hardly gave the Rockies a chance to contend, and it’s no coincidence the front office went out and signed Greg Holland. Holland, if he’s healthy, should make the situation an awful lot better. But he won’t be tasked with trying to do it alone. Adam Ottavino is also a part of the group, and while he missed most of 2015 and half of 2016 due to Tommy John surgery, he’s pitched some, and he’s probably been overlooked.

Because of his recent numbers, I can’t wait to see what Carter Capps does this year, post-surgery. Ottavino belongs in a similar boat. He’s already pitched a little bit post-surgery, but I doubt many were paying attention. You think this year’s Rockies will be more competitive. Ottavino could be a big part of that. Look what happens when you combine his 2015 and 2016 samples, and then compare that to his previous record.

Very clearly, we’re not dealing with much. In 2015, Ottavino pitched in 10 games before he had surgery. Last year he came back and made 34 appearances after the calendar flipped to July. Combined, it’s a sample of just 142 plate appearances. But relative to what Ottavino used to be, this newer version has been far better in terms of strikeouts and grounders. He’s ranked in the top 3% of all pitchers in adjusted ERA, FIP, and xFIP, and it probably has something to do with a two-seamer he’s more aggressively folded in.

Since every such post needs a visual:

Ottavino’s putaway pitch remains his slider. It’s still a good slider! But more recently, he’s used two fastballs instead of one, and he’s worked different sides of the plate. Although he’s spent less time within the strike zone, he’s also generated fewer swings within the strike zone, which is a good outcome. Ottavino has been more difficult to read and predict, and the small-sample results have been outstanding.

We could still probably stand to see more, and strong lefty bats remain a vulnerability. Because of the way that he throws, Ottavino is forever likely to run a substantial platoon split. Yet when he’s been able to pitch of late, he’s done almost everything right. Strikeouts and grounders while limiting walks. As with any team, the Rockies could be in for some bad luck. With some good luck, however, their bullpen could present a dominant top two. From there, who’s to say what they could achieve?

Good news! It looks like we have our ZiPS information uploaded. What that actually means — until now, whenever you looked at the projected standings, you were seeing Steamer projections, only. Now you should be seeing 50/50 Steamer and ZiPS projections. This is the way we’ve done it for a while, evenly compromising between the two systems.

So, first, here’s the current projected winning-percentage landscape, displayed poorly and with an arbitrarily-truncated y-axis.

I can’t imagine there’s too much that takes you by surprise. Cubs good. Padres bad. Dodgers good. Brewers bad. We have some understanding of pretty much everyone, and forecasting systems never disagree that dramatically.

But they can and do disagree! So we can quickly look at that. What we have right now are blended projections. What we had at the end of last week were the Steamer projections. It requires only some simple math to isolate the ZiPS projections, and from there, we can look at the differences between what ZiPS says and what Steamer says. In this plot, I’ve subtracted Steamer win% from ZiPS win%. The teams on the left are favored by ZiPS. The teams on the right are favored by Steamer.

I’ve done nothing here to examine the Why. That would be something for a larger article. But, Blue Jays fans might’ve noticed a bump in the projected standings today. That’s because ZiPS likes them about five wins better than Steamer does. Ditto the Orioles and, partially, the Mets. You also see the Cubs get a bump, with Steamer being a little higher on the Dodgers. But Steamer has the biggest positive disagreement in the directions of both the Royals and Yankees, who Steamer likes more by four and a half wins. Interesting! Again, I’ve done no further research. This whole thing took 10 minutes from start to finish.

This doesn’t mean ZiPS is more right, nor does it mean Steamer is more right. There’s a reason we fold them both in with equal weights. This is just to help explain why you might’ve seen some shifts in the standings. ZiPS has got opinions, see. It’s not just Steamer re-packaged.

I got to participate in the voting for last season’s American League Rookie of the Year award. Like almost everyone else, I agonized over whether to go with Gary Sanchez or Michael Fulmer, before ultimately settling on the latter. Tyler Naquin rounded out my ballot. It was the most common ballot — there were a dozen, out of 30, that read like mine.

If I had a fourth-place slot, I would’ve found room for Christopher Devenski. As is, Devenski showed up on five ballots, finishing third on four and second on one. There were many rookies last year who were pretty good. Devenski, somehow, has seemingly flown under the radar. He was so good!

If I wanted, I could leave it at this — there were 142 different pitchers in all of baseball who threw at least 100 innings. Here are the best of them, by ERA-:

1. Clayton Kershaw, 43
2. Kyle Hendricks, 51
3. Chris Devenski, 52

But you could look at the fact that Devenski allowed just four homers and conclude he got lucky. He probably did. Doesn’t mean he didn’t get better and better. It’s Devenski’s second half that really stands out. After the All-Star break, he threw 49.2 innings. Here are some percentile rankings out of everyone who cleared 25 post-ASB frames.

Down the stretch, Devenski threw strikes like Max Scherzer, and he missed bats like…well, also Max Scherzer. He compelled hitters to constantly chase out of the zone, in part a testament to his outstanding changeup. But you shouldn’t come away believing Devenski was some kind of soft-tosser; by September he was throwing his average fastball around 94 miles per hour.

Devenski was underrated because he wasn’t really a starting pitcher. He did start a few times, but he predominantly relieved, without closing. As you know, statistically speaking, relievers have it easier. Yet Devenski wasn’t a reliever of the conventional sort. The last bar in the plot above reads PA/GR. That’s out of a different sample pool — all relievers with at least 10 appearances in the second half. The category itself refers to average plate appearances per relief appearance. Devenski was close to the top. He wasn’t a matchup guy, or a one-inning guy. He was more of a multi-inning swingman, which makes his numbers all the more remarkable. He was that good, for dozens of pitches at a time.

Borrowing from Texas Leaguers, Devenski made a midseason change that could’ve driven his greater success.

As the season wore on, Devenski all but abandoned his curveball, replacing it with a sharper slider. He showed excellent command of the pitch, and opponents missed it nearly half of the time they swung. Here’s Devenski using the slider to get back in the count:

The slider gave Devenski a consistent third pitch. In the second half, he threw it 22% of the time. He threw his fastball 40% of the time. And he threw his changeup — this changeup — 32% of the time.

Lefties would see all three pitches. Righties would see all three pitches. And Devenski’s over-the-top delivery presumably added some measure of deception. His fastball comes with a good amount of rise, and the changeup plays off of it perfectly. The slider is why the Astros are still thinking about Devenski as potentially becoming a starter. He might work well for five or six innings at a time. It’s already clear he can work well for two or three.

Devenski is going to be a key part of the Astros’ enviable pitching depth, no matter his role. Whether he’s rotation insurance or a steady presence in the bullpen, he’ll provide something every manager wants. As he showed over last season’s final three months, he can pitch as well as almost anyone else, and this from someone who was a completely unheralded prospect. A 25th-round draft pick who was included as a PTBNL for Brett Myers. You can give the White Sox some credit for identifying and developing Jose Quintana. In a similar but opposite way, I guess Devenski was an oversight.

Pitchers and catchers have reported. It’s shorts weather in Minnesota, at least to Minnesotans. Spring is coming. It’s time to fire up the Pitch Talks machine and get together to talk about our favorite teams. Here we come, Phoenix!

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Last week, the author of this post played the inaugural Over/Under Prospect Game on FanGraphs Audio with lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen, the results of which contest were subsequently recorded for posterity at this site. Now, just this very minute, the same author has published an audio record of a similar game — in this case with managing editor Dave Cameron.

The rules of this particular version:

• Contestant A introduces a specific metric for 2017.
• Contestant A proposes a precise figure for that metric.
• Contestant B chooses the over or under.

So, for example: in this edition of the game, Cameron proposes a wager concerning Adam Eaton’s UZR figure in center field for the Nats this season. He sets the over/under mark at +8.0 runs. The author of this post chooses the under. Bet made.

Each Cameron and the host submit five over/under proposals in this episode, for a total of 10 overall. The results of all 10 wagers appear below.

Wager No. 1
Contestant A: Cistulli
Metric: Games entered by Andrew Miller in 7th inning or earlier.
Over/Under: 22
Contestant B: Cameron
Chooses: Under

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You can learn a lot about a hitter by the way he gets pitched to. Granted, you can also learn a lot about a hitter by the way that he hits, but when you look at the approach, you learn something about perception. You learn how opponents see the hitter. Two useful measures: fastball rate, and zone rate. You could of course go deeper than this, but fastball rate tells you something about fear. The same goes for zone rate. If someone keeps getting fastballs in the zone, the pitchers probably aren’t afraid. If someone rarely sees fastballs or pitches in the zone, well, something else is going on.

Some 2016 numbers, for reference:

You can see how aggressively pitchers are attacked by other pitchers. The fastball rate skyrockets, and you get five out of nine pitches in the strike zone. More powerful hitters see fewer fastballs, and fewer strikes. Less powerful hitters see more fastballs, and more strikes. This is all easy and intuitive, and although there are other variables to consider, we’ve touched on the big stuff.

Using these statistics, we can attempt to quantify a hitter’s intimidation. No, it’s not perfect, but I’ve still run the math, calculating z-scores for both of the rates. The last step is just adding the two z-scores together. In this table, the least intimidating hitters in baseball in 2016, given a minimum of 200 plate appearances.

It’s Ben Revere! And it’s Ben Revere by a mile. Revere just saw 70% fastballs, and he saw 52% of all pitches in the strike zone. That’s not quite where pitchers wound up, collectively, but Revere was nearly pitched like a pitcher, and that certainly sends a message. No one was afraid of him, and not coincidentally, Revere finished with a 47 wRC+. He did, though, smack a couple of dingers.

For some context, I calculated numbers for individual hitter-seasons throughout the PITCHf/x era, stretching back to 2008. Where did Revere’s season rank in terms of its unintimidatingness?

Not a bad showing — fifth place, out of 3,148 hitter-seasons. David Eckstein occupies the top two spots, and, sure, of course he does. Because I’m sure you’d wonder, the lowest combined score is -6.7, belonging to 2012 Josh Hamilton. Pitchers definitely didn’t want to throw him any fastballs, and they didn’t want to risk anything he’d find particularly hittable.

Back to Revere. There was an article on Nationals.com after the home run embedded above, which was Revere’s first of the season. Said Dusty Baker, unironically, or maybe ironically, how should I know:

“I’m just hoping he doesn’t get that dreadful disease of home run-itis,” Baker said.

Said Revere, referring to same:

“If I try to hit it in the air, I’ll probably be at .250 or a Mendoza-line .200 hitter. But if I hit the ball on the ground or line drives, I’ll be .300 for a long time.”

Revere ran the same ground-ball rate he had as a regular in 2015, when he hit .306. He finished the year batting .217.

The Dodgers signed Franklin Gutierrez over the weekend. Now, I didn’t realize the Dodgers still had room on their major-league roster, but they probably know better than I do. Here is a list of problems that have sent Franklin Gutierrez to the disabled list over the past several years:

• stomach gastritis
• strained left oblique
• torn right pectoral
• concussion
• strained right hamstring
• strained right hamstring

Related to the above, here are Gutierrez’s year-to-year plate-appearance totals after getting traded to the Mariners:

• 2009: 629
• 2010: 629
• 2011: 344
• 2012: 163
• 2013: 151
• 2014: 0

That zero stands out. Gutierrez missed all of 2014, making the personal decision to sit out so he could focus on treatment. Treatment for what? Treatment for ankylosing spondylitis! Young athletes are not often diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, but Gutierrez was, and there isn’t a cure. It’s a condition he’ll deal with for the rest of his life, and it costs him flexibility and mobility. It’s cruel and unrelenting, and when Gutierrez elected to not play, he couldn’t have known whether he’d ever be able to return.

But he tried in 2015. He tried, and he succeeded, having settled on a treatment plan that left him feeling somewhat okay. Gutierrez batted almost 200 times with the 2015 Mariners, and then he batted almost 300 times with the 2016 Mariners. And the player that Gutierrez turned himself into was and is dramatically different from the player he’d been before.

That’s a comparison of recent Gutierrez to what’s basically peak, healthy Gutierrez. Earlier in his career, Gutierrez was as smooth an outfield defender as anyone had ever seen. He was one of the best defensive players in baseball, and at the plate, he showed some promising pop. Now look at the last two years. Gutierrez has become a negative defensive asset, because he simply doesn’t move so well anymore. For the same reason, he’s seldom aggressive on the bases. So much of that old athleticism is gone, and it’ll never return. But Gutierrez has found a way to compensate. He’s gotten bigger, and he’s made a conscious effort to try to just beat the living crap out of the ball.

Some percentile rankings from the last two years:

• HR/FB%: 100th
• ISO: 96th
• Hard%: 99th
• wFA/C: 99th
• Exit Velo: 96th
• Contact: 7th
• K%: 5th
• Fastball%: 4th
• Def/600: 19th

No hitter in baseball has managed a higher rate of home runs per fly ball. Gutierrez has some of the best hard-contact measures around, having sacrificed contact to get there. At this point, he has a lot of power and a lot of swing-and-miss, and so pitchers increasingly treat Gutierrez like a terrifying threat, avoiding fastballs and avoiding the zone. As far as other things go, Gutierrez can still play the outfield, but he isn’t very good at it. And there will be days he’ll wake up and he simply won’t be able to play. On those days, his condition won’t let him.

The reality is, Gutierrez isn’t getting healthier. And teams are reluctant to sign a player whose availability is unpredictable. From time to time, the Dodgers might end up frustrated, playing games with a short bench. But they know what they’re getting into, and they know what Gutierrez has been able to do since his return. Having lost a lot of his ability to move around, Gutierrez has focused on more light jogs and fewer hard sprints. He remains active with his 34th birthday coming next week, and given where he’s been, that’s almost impossible to believe.