David Laurila published an interview with Lance McCullers last Friday. On Sunday, McCullers made his latest start, and here is about 1% of it:

Here is a view of the same thing happening, only taking place over a greater amount of time:

Good result. Good curveball! Nothing new there — McCullers tends to get good results, mostly because he throws a good curveball. His curveball bears a strong resemblance to that thrown by Craig Kimbrel, the difference being that McCullers is a starting pitcher, which is nuts. He’s not a two-pitch guy, but everyone knows the curveball is his weapon; as a rookie, his curve was worth about 18 runs better than average, while his fastball and change combined to be worth about -7.

You can’t learn a lot from one video clip. It’s always helpful to establish context. So, here’s the whole point of this. Last season, among starters, McCullers threw baseball’s hardest average curveball, by 0.1 miles per hour. In curveball rate, he ranked sixth. Good curveball, hard curveball, used it a lot. Moving on.

This season, among starters, McCullers has thrown baseball’s hardest average curveball, by 2.0 miles per hour. In curveball rate, he ranks first. He ranks first by more than seven percentage points. McCullers has thrown a curveball 49% of the time, and out of his five starts, his lowest rate is 42%. You think Rich Hill curveballs a lot? You think Drew Pomeranz curveballs a lot? They most certainly do, sure, but not like McCullers. No starter throws curves as often as he does, and no starter throws curves as hard as he does.

For what it’s worth, we have pitch-type information stretching back to 2002. The highest curveball rates on record for starters:

1. Lance McCullers, 2016, 48.5%
2. John Stephens, 2002, 46.0%
3. Phil Irwin, 2013, 41.9%
4. Pat Mahomes, 2003, 41.7%
5. Rich Hill, 2015, 41.5%

McCullers also ranks first in velocity, assuming this is a data glitch:

Compared to last year, McCullers has thrown plenty more curves. Statistically, that’s sensible, because the curve is his best pitch. Even now, the curve still has a strongly positive run value, while the other pitches don’t. It’s interesting to observe that the whiff rate at his curveball has only gone up, and rather substantially so. His fastball is like a secondary pitch at this point. Speaking of which — he’s throwing his fastball a little slower. He’s throwing his changeup a little slower. The curveball is harder. Part of this is probably just having a harder curveball, and another part is probably favoring the sharper curve over the loopier curve, as McCullers discussed with Laurila. He says he’s got two varieties of the breaking ball, and evidence suggests he’s been using more of the hard one.

So Lance McCullers is highly atypical. Or, he’s been so, so far. It’s worth noting it hasn’t all been good news — his ERA is over 4, in part because his walk rate has almost doubled. The strikeouts are up, and the grounders are up, but McCullers is searching for a groove. If and when he finds one, maybe it’ll feature fewer curves. Maybe the curves will be slower. I can’t tell you exactly where Lance McCullers is going to settle.

But the version we’ve seen this season? Haven’t seen a starter quite like this. Not, at least, for a long, long time.

A few days ago, the Giants lost Hunter Pence to the disabled list, weakening an already thin outfield, and making it likely that the team will have to start looking to the trade market to fill the hole at some point this summer. Then, Marlon Byrd got suspended for using PEDs, taking an outfielder off an Indians roster that was already weak in the outfield, forcing Cleveland GM Chris Antonetti to admit that they’ll probably start surveying the trade market for outfield help.

The problem, though, is that they’re going to join a pretty large number of contenders looking for outfielders. The Nationals are likely to be looking for an OF this summer, as Michael Taylor and Jayson Werth haven’t exactly inspired much confidence to this point. The Cubs could be in the market for an outfielder if Jorge Soler doesn’t start hitting fairly soon. The Red Sox probably won’t go with Blake Swihart or Brock Holt as their regular left fielder down the stretch, so they could be in the market for an outfielder as well. The Mariners probably wouldn’t mind a better option than Nori Aoki if they could find one. The White Sox could pick up an outfielder and move Melky Cabrera to DH, or move Austin Jackson to a fourth outfielder role if they found an upgrade in center field. The Orioles seem to not trust Hyun-Soo Kim, so when he cools off, he might get displaced as well.

Point being, there are a lot of potential buyers for outfield upgrades this summer. But the list of available outfielders, right now, looks pretty short.

The Brewers would move Ryan Braun, but first he has to prove he can stay in the line-up on a regular basis, which has been a problem lately. The contract, age, and PED history will likely scare off a number of buyers as well. Carlos Gonzalez should be available, but the Rockies have declined to move him the last few times he should been available too, so who knows what they’re going to do.

Jay Bruce is out there, but he’s a DH at this point of his career, and shouldn’t interest any team that cares about their pitchers. Ditto Matt Kemp, who is also running a .250 OBP and owed a crazy amount of money. Maybe the Braves would move Nick Markakis, except he’s not very good, and also overpaid. On the buy low side of things, the Rays could probably be talked out of Desmond Jennings, but he hasn’t hit in a couple of years now, and injuries seem to have sapped him of some of his athleticism.

Josh Reddick would probably be the best available outfield option for most teams, but he’s currently hurt. He should be back in time to serve as a decent July trade chip, but there’s also only one of him to go around, and certainly more than one team in the market for outfield help.

Given the lack of supply and the abundance of demand, it will probably make sense for teams on the bubble of contending to listen to offers for their productive outfielders. This could be the ideal time for the Yankees to get maximum value for Brett Gardner, for instance, or for the Rockies to put Charlie Blackmon on the block. With the current state of weak outfields on contending teams and not a great crop of outfielders available in trade, there may be an opportunity for a team to get a nice package for any kind of decent outfielder. There just don’t look like there are that many decent outfielders out there to be had right now.

This brief post about Sabermetrics Day on June 19th at Richmond County Bank Ballpark — home of the Yankees’ New York-Penn League affiliate in Staten Island — is designed to apprise the public of certain, possibly useful information.

First, one finds that the Staten Island Yankees have recently announced the participants in the Q&A Panel scheduled to occur from 2:00 to 3:30pm. From the club’s press release:

Dave Cameron – Managing editor and senior writer for FanGraphs; Owner/Operator of U.S.S. Mariner; Former contributor to ESPN, The Wall Street Journal, Baseball Prospectus.

Carson Cistulli – Senior writer for FanGraphs; Creator of NERD, SCOUT, and historical GBz%; Former editor of NotGraphs and writer for The Hardball Times.

Jonah Keri – Writer for CBS Sports and Sports Illustrated; New York Times best-selling author of Up, Up, and Away and The Extra 2%.

Emma Span – Senior Editor for Sports Illustrated; Author of 90% of the Game is Half Mental: And Other Tales from the Edge of Baseball Fandom.

Dan Szymborski – Baseball analyst for ESPN; Founder of Baseball Think Factory; Creator of ZiPS projection system.

Ben Lindbergh – Staff writer for FiveThirtyEight; Co-host of Effectively Wild; Co-Author of The Only Rule Is it Has to Work; Former editor-in-chief for Baseball Prospectus; Former staff writer for Grantland.

Meg Rowley – Writer for Baseball Prospectus and SB Nation’s Lookout Landing.

That same press release carries a combination of bad and also good news for those interested in gaining access to the event. Once again, from the communiqué de presse:

Tickets for the VIP Q&A Panel are sold out. However, there are still tickets available for the Statgeek Picnic featuring the full roster of writers and analysts. For the a lineup of confirmed special guests or for more information, visit siyanks.com/sabermetrics.

Sometimes, you write about something and the commenters unlock something that started in your piece and ends up somewhere more definitive. We were looking for the problem with Michael Pineda earlier today, and it looked like his release points were a bit off and his stuff a bit flat, but not in any crazy way.

But then people pointed out that he’s throwing his fastball lower in the zone, and that it has less sink. And also that he’s been way worse with men on base.

Well, if you take that second part, it really looks like he’s struggling from the stretch.

@DrewDinkmeyer @enosarris suspect some correlation here to struggling from the stretch also. Opp avg up 50, ops up 100 w/ men on for Pineda

— James Van Horn (@Jvh927) June 2, 2016

So I did a simple query for his movement and location with runners on and with the bases empty, and there differences are fairly stark.

First, with nobody on.

Michael Pineda Velocity, Movement, Location and Release (Bases Empty)

Pitch	Velocity	Horizontal	Vertical	Crosses Plate Vertically	Release Point
FC	93.2	1.2	7.1	2.68	6.65
FF	93.1	-2.4	8.5	2.33	6.73
CH	87.7	-7.5	6.3	1.81	6.86
SL	85.4	1.1	1.0	1.27	6.60

Now, with runners on.

Michael Pineda Velocity, Movement, Location and Release (Runners On)

Pitch	Velocity	Horizontal	Vertical	Crosses Plate Vertically	Release Point
FC	93.7	1.0	7.7	2.68	6.49
FF	93.5	-2.6	8.7	2.36	6.66
CH	87.9	-8.2	6.8	1.82	6.76
SL	85.8	1.1	1.2	1.85	6.57

On average, the throws harder and from a lower release point when there are runners on. Understandable, perhaps, he’s trying to get out of the inning. At first, though, a different of an inch on the release point seems like it’s just another small thing that could be meaningful or not.

But look at where the slider cross the plate with men on base. It’s a full seven inches higher! When the bases empty, his average slider crosses the plate nearly three inches off the bottom of the plate. With runners on base, it crosses the plate four inches above the bottom of the strike zone on average. That’s a big difference!

And yet… it’s once again not something that’s necessarily mechanical. This could be the effect of confidence in the numbers.

I once talked to Ryan Vogelsong about why he was better with runners on base than he ‘should be,’ and he said “the biggest thing is… not giving up hits with runners on base.” He didn’t tell me at the time, but it looks like he, like many Giants, was willing to give up a walk with runners on instead of giving up a hit.

Maybe Michael Pineda could take that philosophy to the mound today, especially with his slider.

The Indians outfield, already seen as a rather glaring weakness for a team with intentions of contending, just took another hit. Marlon Byrd has been suspended for 162 games after testing positive for performance enhancing drugs, multiple sources reported Wednesday afternoon. It’s the second positive test of Byrd’s career; he was suspended for 50 games in 2012 after testing positive for Tamoxifen. Cleveland Scene’s Vince Grzegorek was first with today’s news, and FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal later confirmed it.

Byrd is far from a superstar, but he was a key part of Cleveland’s now-dangerously thin outfield depth. Before the suspension, he was doing precisely what he’d done the previous two seasons: hit for enough power to be a slightly above-average hitter while providing average-or-better defense in right field. He was a body capable of performing adequately in a major league outfield, and the Indians don’t have many of those left. Their current everyday outfield looks like this:

• LF: Jose Ramirez
• CF: Rajai Davis
• RF: Lonnie Chisenhall

No platoon partners, nothing. That is, as my colleague Eno Sarris put it, a utility infielder (who, granted, has been Cleveland’s best hitter this year), a career fourth outfielder, and a platoon third baseman.

The immediate problem for Cleveland is that Byrd represented half of a right field platoon with Chisenhall, who owns a career 89 wRC+ against left-handed pitching. Davis would be a sensible partner in right with Chisenhall, if he weren’t being asked to handle center field on an everyday basis in the absence of Abraham Almonte (PED suspension which ends 30 days) and rookie Tyler Naquin (21 strikeouts and two walks in 65 plate appearances). Michael Brantley still has no timetable for his return to left field, and word out of Cleveland has not been optimistic about his 2016.

The stopgaps have done their job — between Ramirez’s exceptional play and Davis, Byrd and Chisenhall performing adequately, the Indians outfield currently ranks 10th in WAR — but they can’t reasonably expect this unit to maintain its current level of production. Our projections see the Indians outfield putting up just 3.1 WAR the rest of the way, the worst figure in the American League.

Top prospects Bradley Zimmer and Clint Frazier are both crushing Double-A, but Zimmer is striking out in 30% of his plate appearances and he’s supposed to be the more polished product. This Indians front office has been notoriously cautious with their promotion of top prospects, and so it seems unlikely that we’ll see a knee-jerk reaction that brings Zimmer or Frazier to Cleveland anytime soon.

It’s possible that they’ll just recall Naquin and hold pat — they still have the second-best playoff odds of any American League team thanks to their top-five rotation and middle infield tandem — but with the depth as thin as it is, it might be time for the Indians to revisit those offseason trade talks.

This is a post about the similarities between Matt Bush and Aroldis Chapman on the baseball field. On the baseball field.

Which, really, it’s remarkable that any similarities exist at all, given Matt Bush was first a shortstop, and then incarcerated, and has only since been pitching professionally again since April of this year. Seriously. April 7, 2016 was his first professional pitching appearance in more than four years. Two months later, here we are talking about the characteristics his fastball alongside the most powerful fastball in the game.

What makes a fastball dynamic? Well, velocity of course. That’s what you know Chapman for. That’s what a good fastball’s always been. But more recently, we’ve learned the importance of spin rate, too, which helps influence both movement and deception. There’s more to any pitch than just velocity and spin, but if you had to pick only two quantifiable characteristics to measure a fastball, you’d pick these two. Or at least, I did. And when I did that, the results looked like this:

That’s every starter and every reliever with at least 50 four-seam fastballs thrown this year. By velocity, Bush’s fastball ranks eighth, averaging 97.2 miles per hour. By spin rate, Bush’s fastball ranks second, averaging 2,626 revolutions per minute. Put the two together, and you’ve the closest thing to an average Aroldis Chapman fastball, and perhaps the most lively heater displayed by any right-handed pitcher in baseball this season.

Observe:

Guy was supposed to be a shortstop.

Something interesting caught my eye this morning while doing the research for my post on Alcides Escobar’s first-pitch swing tendencies: Matt Carpenter has led off 42 times for the Cardinals this year, and in those 42 leadoff starts, he has not yet swung at a single first pitch to begin the game. Forty-two first pitches, forty-two takes.

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Position: LA Angels Assistant Baseball Systems Developer

Location: Anaheim

Description:

The Assistant Baseball Systems Developer will help build and maintain application and database systems to assist in the decision making process of the Baseball Operations Department.

Responsibilities:

• Work with the current development to team to help design, develop, improve, and maintain new and existing applications and data systems.
• Develop web-based applications displaying data at multiple levels of detail.
• Design ad hoc SQL queries to facilitate baseball operations.
• Implement and optimize advanced algorithms for player projection from software prototypes.
• Continually work with baseball operations staff to identify features and areas of improvement within the player information system to facilitate a user-friendly research tool.
• Integrate new information sources and multimedia displays into player information and tracking system.
• Communicate results to appropriate staff members through presentations, written reports, and tools.
• Other duties as assigned by members of the Baseball Operations Department.

Qualifications:

• Experience with at least one object oriented programming language, preferably C# or Python.
• Familiarity with SQL querying and database design principles (experience with Microsoft SQL Server a plus).
• Comfortable with modern web development technologies including HTML5, CSS, and JavaScript.
• Knowledge of the software development lifecycle and industry best practices.
• Working familiarity with advanced statistical concepts, particularly those relevant to sabermetric player projection techniques that include experience implementing statistical calculations, derivations, and graphical representations into software applications.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field from a four-year college or university or equivalent work experience.

To Apply:
Please apply here.

On Friday night, the Dodgers were set to start LHP Alex Wood against the Mets in New York, but he has been scratched due to tightness in his triceps. To replace Wood, LA is calling up 19 year old sensation Julio Urias to make his big league debut.

To say Urias has earned the promotion would be an understatement. Just 19, even making it to Triple-A is an accomplishment, and for most pitchers in the PCL, the goal is to just not suck too badly. For instance, two years ago, a 21 year old Noah Syndergaard ran a 4.60 ERA/3.70 FIP, as he controlled the strike zone but got torched for a .389 BABIP, thanks to the fun-sized ballparks and offensive environments that make the league a hitter’s haven.

Urias, though, is running a 1.10 ERA/2.89 FIP in his first 41 innings in the PCL, and four of the five runs he’s allowed came in one appearance, back on April 16th. He allowed the fifth run in his next outing on April 22nd, a five inning affair where he gave up just two hits, walked one, and struck out eight. He’s pitched in five games since then, and posted the following line.

26 IP, 13 H, 0 R, 6 BB, 24 K.

In the toughest environment for a pitcher in baseball, Urias is destroying the competition. As a 19 year old.

So tomorrow, we’ll get to see how ready he is to get big leaguers out. His initial test, pitching against the defending NL champs in Citi Field, is not an easy one, but Urias has been dominating hitters in less-than-friendly environments all year. There is always a tremendous amount of uncertainty when it comes to projecting pitching prospects making the leap to the big leagues, but with Urias doing what he did to Triple-A batters this year, it was time to see how well he’ll handle the transition.

Steamer’s already sold on Urias, projecting him for a 3.43 ERA/3.58 FIP over the rest of the season, which would work out to put him on a pace for +3 WAR if he were to pitch a full season’s worth of innings. Whether the teenager can live up to those lofty projections and the hype that surrounds him is something we’re all about to find out.

An interesting nugget from a recent edition of the always-excellent Ken Rosenthal notebook:

White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper accepted responsibility for Jeff Samardzija’s struggles last season, telling reporters, “Man, I failed.”

Samardzija, with the benefit of hindsight, takes a more magnanimous view, saying that Cooper only was trying to help him. As it turns out, the foundation of his early success with the Giants came in his final two starts with the White Sox, a one-hit shutout of the Tigers and a strong seven-inning effort against the eventual World Series champion Royals.

Samardzija, 31, said he made an adjustment in September after realizing that he was tipping pitches based upon the time he stayed set in the stretch — coming out of it quickly, he threw a fastball or cutter; taking more time, he threw a slider or split.

A handful of times each year, an article will surface with a pitcher, manager, or even reporter, suggesting that a struggling starter might be tipping his pitches. Seems like, more often than not, these suggestions are sort of brushed aside, either because they’re viewed as nothing more than an excuse, or because without any explanation regarding the nature of the tipping, they’re just viewed as hearsay. Well, Rosenthal provided some pretty specific explanation, and so I went looking to see if I couldn’t find some good ol’ Jeff Samardzija pitch-tipping in action.

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