First, Jeff Sullivan on Arquimedes Caminero:

If you just look at the .gifs quickly, they look similar. They are similar — nothing here was overhauled. But, in 2015, Caminero has a higher leg lift, and as his leg comes up, he’s more vertical, eliminating last year’s slight hunch. It also appears he’s reduced his drop on his back leg, and as he comes around, he remains more straight-up. Finally, at release, a year ago, Caminero had some tilt toward the first-base side, with his left knee at an awkward angle. This year, there’s less tilt, and less of that angle, with Caminero’s body aiming him toward the catcher, which channels his energy. His arm, hip, and legs are working together, improving his mechanical efficiency. In this way, a simplified delivery can also squeeze more speed out of all the connective bits.

Then, his GIFS.

Finally, Arquimedes Caminero, in response to my reading Jeff Sullivan’s paragraph to him.

“Slowing down to speed it up. Lifting the leg higher, that’s one of the points why my delivery is slower. Staying under control. Everything is combined. Stay taller to get slower. It was very simple. I had that velocity before in Triple-A, but when I came up to the big leagues last year I wasn’t so confident in my fastball, and I was trying throw more strikes than throw for speed. This year, I am just very confident and I’m letting it go. Now I throw the splitter as much as the cutter, they’re not very different, but one is slower and lower and goes to the arm side and the cutter is up here. 89-92 for both. Nothing soft.”

Nothing soft, indeed.

We’ve done the starters, now it’s time for the relievers!

Well, OK, first, let’s tally the starters. As of 8:30 pm ET or so Monday night, this was the top 10 in each league. First, the American League:

1. Felix Hernandez – 2,020 votes, 18%
2. Corey Kluber – 1,605, 14%
3. Dallas Keuchel – 1,526, 14%
4. Sonny Gray – 1,369, 12%
5. Chris Archer – 1,254, 11%
6. Chris Sale – 838, 7%
7. Michael Pineda – 813, 7%
8. David Price – 541, 5%
9. Jake Odorizzi – 262, 2%
10. Garrett Richards – 105, 1%

And the National League:

1. Max Scherzer – 1,676, 16%
2. Clayton Kershaw – 1,117, 10%
3. Matt Harvey – 1,073, 10%
4. Shelby Miller – 1,031, 10%
5. Zack Greinke – 966, 9%
6. Gerrit Cole – 965, 9%
7. Madison Bumgarner – 840, 8%
8. Michael Wacha – 492, 5%
9. Jake Arrieta – 401, 4%
10. A.J. Burnett – 345, 3%

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s do the relievers. As a reminder, just vote for three. Another reminder — I can’t stop you from voting for more than three people, so you’re on the honor system.

Guys left out: Luke Gregerson, Brad Brach, Neftali Feliz, Ryan Madson and Zach Duke. Sorry, I guess? Again, I used only qualified relievers.

And the NL:

Apologies to: Luis Avilan, Michael Blazek, Matt Belisle, Andrew Chafin, Juan Nicasio, Santiago Casilla, Jared Hughes, Mark Melancon and J.J. Hoover. I guess.

Rock the vote!

In our continuing effort to help improve the understanding of the stats we use at FanGraphs, I created a diagram that shows the different inputs for seven of the most popular composite batting stats: AVG, BABIP, OBP, ISO, SLG, OPS, and wOBA. The intent of this diagram is to visually show how the various batting stats are related to each other, and what factors into each stat. For a more thorough description of what the stat measures and its correct interpretation please visit our library. Fortunately, this diagram isn’t as complicated as the diagram for WAR.

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A less interactive bracket for the NCAA baseball tournament. Click to enlarge, nevertheless.

The NCAA baseball tournament lacks both the popular appeal and, owing probably to each sport’s respective pace, the unrelenting delirium of its basketball counterpart. Nevertheless, it does offer the sort of drama innate to elimination play — that, and the opportunity to observe players whose names have been invoked, for example, in Kiley McDaniel’s draft-prospect rankings and also the present author’s own (maybe) predictive statistical reports. Another advantage that it possesses — at the moment, at least — is that it’s being played literally this moment, while the basketball version doesn’t recur until next March.

Follow this link for an interactive bracket of the tournament and also this link for video of actual games by way of Watch ESPN — including the Bases Loaded channel, which provides what may or may not be called “whip-around coverage” of the tournament.

Eduardo Rodriguez debuted yesterday for the Red Sox. There was instantly something remarkable about him.

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Just to be clear, there are two separate positions here.

Position: Los Angeles Dodgers Research & Development Data Scientist

Location: Los Angeles

Description:
The Los Angeles Dodgers are seeking a Data Scientist for the team’s Baseball Research and Development (R&D) group. The Data Scientist will work closely with the Director of R&D and our analytics team to research, develop and test mathematical, statistical, and predictive models to support Baseball Operations.
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It could have just been your basic ol’ swap: make your general manager your manager, and your assistant general manager your general manager. Since it’s the Marlins who have attempted to make the maneuver, though, they couldn’t just go and make it that straightforward. When your author was simply attempting to confirm, via the Internet, that former Marlins assistant general manager Mike Berger was now in fact the Marlins’ general manager, your author fell into a hole of frighteningly dissonant reportage. That the reportage is dissonant is not, your author has hypothesized, the fault of the very able reporters. Rather, the author suspects that blame should be placed at the feet of the Marlins, seeing as the identity of the other 29 general managers can be very easily ascertained on the same Internet via the work of these same reporters.

To re-set the timeline: on Sunday, May 17, the Marlins were handily defeated by Shelby Miller and the Atlanta Braves in a matinee, after which manager Mike Redmond was fired. On Monday, May 18, Dan Jennings (not Dan Jennings) was re-assigned from Marlins general manager to manager, in time to be knighted by Ichiro Suzuki in the dugout that evening. This part is pretty straightforward.

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Earlier today, the present author utilized a nearly coherent metaphor involving astronomy to illustrate a point about Tampa Bay right-hander Chris Archer — namely that, not unlike how a star is both luminous and hot, so is Chris Archer’s future as a pitcher simultaneously luminous and also bursting with heat.

There are a number of statistical indicators one might consider when attempting to evaluate a pitcher’s likelihood for future success. One of the most expedient, however, is to assess his capacity to produce both strikeouts and ground balls at a rate better than league average. What follows is a graph that plots those two metrics against each other for all qualifiers thus far in 2015.

The data points in the top right corner represent a small sample of those pitchers who’ve managed to record decidedly above-average figures by both metrics — and the names associated with those data points are noteworthy. Felix Hernandez, Clayton Kershaw, and Corey Kluber: as a group, they’ve received five Cy Young awards total and have produced a three of the top-five pitching WAR figures since the beginning of 2014. As for Tyson Ross, he’s also recorded excellent numbers — and would produce even more excellent ones were he to exhibit slightly better command.

Archer, meanwhile, hasn’t exhibited problems with either command or control this year. He features one of the hardest fastballs among qualifiers and has also recorded one of the most unhittable sliders among starting pitchers this year, as well. To find him among the top candidates for the American League Cy Young award at the season end would be an exercise in not-surprise.

This is my favorite nerd-conference event of the year, and I’m looking forward to participating once again. If you’re in the Boston area that weekend, this is a must-attend conference, and if you’re not in the Boston area, you should think about coming anyway. It’s a blast, and raises tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research at the same time. I give it my full endorsement. Come hang out with us.

Tickets are now on sale for Sabermetrics, Scouting, and the Science of Baseball 2015.
They can be purchased through Ticketleap by following the link.

This year’s conference will happen August 22nd-23rd in Boston, MA, at Boston University’s Jacob Sleeper Auditorium. Our keynote sponsors are FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus.

We’ve assembled a stellar cast of speakers from across MLB and the baseball research community. We’ll have demonstrations from the bleeding edge of performance-enhancing technology. And we’ll have a fun, friendly, community event that raises a ton of money to fight cancer.

Tickets are only $140, with special prices of $65 for full time students. The best part of this exceptionally well valued ticket is that 100% of our ticket proceeds go directly to the Jimmy Fund, a Boston area charity that funds cancer research and patient wellbeing.

For more information including a growing list of speakers, directions to the event, and full pricing information, please visit our website at saberseminar.com.

We work very hard to make Saberseminar the most entertaining, thought-provoking, and charitable baseball event of the year. Come join us in Boston this summer!

On Sunday, the Miami Marlins fired their manager, Mike Redmond, barely half a year after he received votes for the 2014 NL Manager of the Year. Coupled with the cut and forthcoming salary-eating of Jarrod Saltalamacchia and his contract, and now the, uh — promotion? demotion? — of general manager Dan Jennings to manager, it’s been a mighty volatile season in Miami. This is a lot of action before Memorial Day: what this team will do in July is anybody’s guess.

During last Friday’s game at home against the Atlanta Braves, which the Marlins would lose, the Miami broadcast team shared a fun fact that rather unwittingly illustrated the team’s lack of continuity and talent. After Giancarlo Stanton hit two home runs earlier in the game, the broadcast team reported that Stanton was the leader in home runs hit in beautiful Marlins Park, established 2012, with 59 — a number that Stanton has since increased to 60, since he is a mighty man.

All’s good so far! Where the fun fact started to unravel was when the identity of the second-most-prolific-homer-er in Marlins Park was revealed. That man is Marcell Ozuna. Which, sure, Ozuna is a promising young talent, but his total of 12 home runs hit in Marlins Park seems something like a typo and something like a piece of trivia from the Deadball Era.

What the broadcast team did not reveal, but which I very much wanted to know, was the remainder of the leaderboard for most home runs hit in Marlins Park. And, thanks to BaseballSavant, I have it.

Tied for third place, with seven homers apiece, is Garrett Jones (a Marlin in 2014), Justin Ruggiano (2012-2013), and Hanley Ramirez, who only called Marlins Park his home for the first 93 games of 2012.

Where the list gets really hairy is if we look at the three players who are tied with six homers apiece. One of them is Saltalamacchia, who is let’s say unlikely to be remembered fondly in the annals of Marlins history. The other two are Ryan Zimmerman and Evan Gattis. The presence of both of these players so high on this list is notable because — and your memory is serving you correctly here — neither of these players have ever been employed as Miami Marlins.

By playing a handful of games instead of half of their games annually at Marlins Park, Zimmerman and Gattis should, under normal circumstances, be nowhere near this close to the top of this leaderboard, especially considering that Gattis did not make his big league debut until 2013, and Zimmerman only managed five total homers in a weak 61 games in 2014. But when, of course, have the Marlins provided a set of normal circumstances?