Well, this should be… something.

Tomorrow’s game between the Orioles and the Chicago White Sox will begin at 2:05 p.m. ET and will be closed to the public.

— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) April 28, 2015

Due to the ongoing civil unrest in Baltimore, the Orioles and White Sox games have been canceled the last two days, and now the final game of the series will be played in an empty stadium. Additionally, the Orioles will now travel to Tampa Bay for this weekend’s series with the Rays, and they will act as the home team while playing on the Rays’ home turf.

While moving games to another team’s ballpark has happened before — Carlos Zambrano threw a no-hitter for the Cubs against the Astros while playing in Milwaukee, in fact — playing a game without allowing fans to attend is a new one to me. I imagine it will be an odd experience for all involved, with no ambient noise or reactions to the events occurring on the field.

But the game will count in the standings all the same, and from a purely I-don’t-know-what-to-expect perspective, this might go down as one of the more interesting games of the year. Of course, the situation in Baltimore is far more important than any game or sporting event, and I hope that every resident of the city remains safe during this time of unrest.

Over the winter, Rob Manfred made it clear that eliminating dead-time between pitches was one of his foremost concerns as Commissioner. The league experimented with a pitch clock during Spring Training, and fines were threatened at players who delayed the game unnecessarily. After the first game of the season, I looked at whether the changes worked on Day 1, and found that indeed, the pace of play was noticeably improved.

But that was based on a sample of 15 games. Often, people will obey new rules for a little while, then go back to doing things the old way. A reduction in time between pitches on Opening Day didn’t mean that we were going to see the same on any other day. But now, we’re nearly at the end of April, and Major League Baseball has played 290 games, so we have roughly 20 times the sample now of the last check-in. This still won’t be definitive, but league averages stabilize very quickly, and structural changes like this usually don’t take too long to show up. So, what’s up with the pace of play in MLB now?

The rules are working. The average time between pitches this year is 22 seconds, down a full second from last year’s mark, and roughly back to where the league was in 2012; if this continues all year, MLB will have managed to reverse three years of ever-slowing baseball in a single season.

Again, one second per pitch isn’t going to sound like a lot, but the sheer quantity of pitches makes these small differences add up. In the games played to date, MLB has seen 83,633 pitches thrown, or an average of 288 pitches per game. Shaving a second per pitch of dead time has translated to a reduction of almost five minutes per game.

MLB’s average time of game is down from 3:07 to 2:58 this year, so the majority of the nine minute reduction has come from shrinking the time between pitches. And they’ve managed to cut off those nine minutes while run scoring is actually up slightly, with total runs per game moving from 8.13 last year to 8.33 this year. The duel goals of increasing offense without extending game length seems like polarizing goals, but it is possible to do both at the same time, and so far this year, MLB is balancing those two priorities nicely.

It’s still only a few weeks of baseball, and this could all still wear off as the year goes along. But the early returns are excellent, and we should give some kudos to MLB for giving us all five minutes of our lives back without materially changing the game on the field. This isn’t mission accomplished, but it’s a pretty encouraging first step in the right direction.

The Marlins signing of Jarrod Saltalamacchia to a three year, $21 million contract was always a bit on the questionable side, given that his one good season in Boston was built on the back of a .372 BABIP. That wasn’t going to last, and his contact rates were always going to be too low for him to be much more than an average hitter. But an average hitting catcher has value, and at $7 million a year, the commitment wasn’t so huge that the deal seemed like a huge mistake.

The Marlins, however, clearly had a severe case of buyer’s remorse, and today they’ve designated Saltalamacchia for assignment, ending his tenure in Miami. They’ll have 10 days to trade him or release him, since no one will take the remainder of his contract via a waiver claim. Realistically, Salty still projects to be a reasonably useful part-time catcher that a team like Arizona, Seattle, or Anaheim should be willing to take on a fraction of the $15 million he’s owed in order to upgrade their bench.

But it’s probably also true that our WAR numbers here likely overrate Saltalmacchia’s value; by Statcorner’s estimates, he was a miserable pitch-framer last year, and then there’s this from former MLB pitcher Tanyon Sturtze:

@Ken_Rosenthal @MLBONFOX not really Ken pitchers hate throwing to him, plus the fact he isn't hitting makes it easy for the #Marlins.

— Tanyon Sturtze (@sturtze56) April 27, 2015

Obviously Sturtze doesn’t speak for everyone, but pitchers do talk, and given that four organizations have now let him go, it does seem possible that Salty’s work behind the plate could be hurting his team in ways that we’re not currently capturing. So, before you get too excited about your favorite team picking up Saltalamachcia, keep in mind that he might be closer to replacement level than current estimates suggest.

After all, a team doesn’t usually DFA a guy that has real trade value. The fact that they made this move suggests there wasn’t much of a market for him, and it wouldn’t be a huge shock to see him get released and then sign with another team for the league minimum. Salty will find another job, but this might have been his last crack a starting role.

To the delight of no fewer than tens of people, today marked the season’s first edition of the author’s highly proprietary and also useless NERD scores. NERD, to quote that inaugural post, “represents an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game.”

Within today’s edition of those NERD scores, one finds that Mets right-hander Dillon Gee receives a score of 9 — higher, it would seem, than certain readers might have expected.

Indeed, Gee’s 5.60 ERA (163 ERA-, if you prefer the park- and league-adjusted version) doesn’t immediately suggest watchability. The fielding-independent numbers (16.4% K, 4.1% BB, 58.9% GB, 88 xFIP-) have been much better, however. But what has really distinguished Gee from his peers thus far has been a combination of his pace between pitches and his overall strike rate.

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Yesterday, the author published a post claiming to include the top players by (maybe) predictive stats from college baseball’s most competitive conferences.

What follows are three weekend series both (a) likely to feature a number of players whose names appeared within that post* and also (b) scheduled for broadcast on readily available network or video stream. MPS+ and MPS- are index metrics based on those (maybe) predictive stats and designed for batters and pitchers, respectively. In each case, 100 is average, while above 100 is better for batters and below 100 is better for pitchers. Read more about the author’s questionable methodology here.

*Except for the Ivy League game, that is, whose players weren’t featured in that post but which the author has included per orders of his capital-W Whim.

Pennsylvania at Columbia
Who It Features
The top-three hitters in the Ivy League. Columbia senior outfielder Gus Craig (158 PA, 136 MSP+) was the Jose Bautista of the Ivy League last season, producing an expected strikeout rate (11.1%) about a third lower than league average and expected ISO (.153) roughly 50% higher than it. His expected strikeout rate (18.1%) is higher than last year, but also so is his regressed isolated-power figure (.192). Teammate Joe Falcone (153 PA, 143 MPS+) is older than most of his teammates — owing, that is, to how he served as a medic for the Marines during tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kuwait. Penn senior Mitch Montaldo (132 PA, 137 MPS+) has produced the conference’s second-best maybe-predictive batting line while also serving as the school’s starting shortstop. Junior second baseman Ryan Mincher (123 PA, 124 MPS+), meanwhile, is another Penn hitter who features above-average skills on both offense and defense. Columbia right-hander Adam Cline (38.2 IP, 78 MPS-) and Penn left-hander Ronnie Glenn (43.2 IP, 84 MPS-) have recorded the third- and fifth-best pitching lines, respectively, in the Ivy League. They start the second and fourth games, respectively.

When It’s On (ET)
Saturday at 1:00pm
Saturday at 3:30pm
Sunday at 1:00pm
Sunday at 3:30pm

How to Watch It
Watch ESPN on Saturday (link).
Ivy League Digital Network otherwise (link).

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Like most headlines in news media and also all other kinds of media, the headline of this particular media post has been constructed less to fully represent the truth and more to tell a version of the truth that is most compelling to prospective readers. In the case of this title, at least, the infraction is only slight. Indeed, instead of stating that a fifth of Buck Farmer’s pitches are unhittable, it’s only really accurate to state that nearly a fifth of Buck Farmer’s pitches have been swung at and missed. So far, that is.

Buck Farmer, in case it has slipped the reader’s mind, is a right-handed pitching prospect in the Detroit system — ranked third in that system by Kiley McDaniel this offseason, but also absent from McDaniel’s top-200 prospect list.

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Last night, with the Red Sox and Rays tied 5-5 in the seventh inning, Kevin Cash brought Brad Boxberger into the game. On the one hand, this was a bit weird, because Boxberger has been serving as the Rays closer while Jake McGee is on the shelf, pitching exclusively in the ninth (or 10th) inning so far this year. On the other hand, it was a bit awesome, because Cash recognized that there might not be a higher leverage situation in that game than facing David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez, and Mike Napoli with the score tied.

Rather than risk a weaker member of his bullpen giving up the lead to Boston’s best hitters, Cash went with his relief ace, and Boxberger responded by striking out the side. The Rays then took a two run in the bottom of the seventh inning, and after regular setup man Kevin Jepsen pitched the 8th, the Rays handed the ball to Steve Geltz to pitch the ninth inning, where he recorded the first save of his career.

After the game, Boxberger said this to MLB.com about his usage.

“It’s a little bit different than the rest of the year has gone,” Boxberger said. “But Cash told me and [Kevin] Jepsen a little bit earlier that we’re just going to try and preserve anything we have.”
And preserve they did.

“It obviously worked out tonight and this was the first go of it,” Boxberger said. “So it’s a little bit different for us, but I think going forward it’s going to help keep us in some more ballgames. Just do what we can to win some.”

The idea of the ninth inning holding special powers where only the chosen can pitch has been propped up by a few decades of everyone treating it that way, but slowly, teams are starting to shift away from that rigid structure. While there may be enough value in having predetermined usage patterns to keep from going all the way back to pre-closer relief usage, it seems that it is more efficient to have the flexibility to at least make exceptions to the ninth-inning-only idea. Different isn’t always received well, but as more outings like Boxberger’s occur and random middle relievers start converting lower leverage saves, the idea of the sanctity of the ninth inning will wear off.

This change will likely occur at a glacier pace, but it is beginning.

As a member of UMass’s graduate-student union during a contract negotiation with that school’s administration in 2007, the present author may or may not have uttered the words “This is what democracy looks like” whilst walking in a circle and holding a picket sign. Luckily for the reader, what follows isn’t an example of what democracy — but rather of what very promising White Sox left-hander Carlos Rodon — looks like when the latter is making his major-league debut, which thing he did on Tuesday night in the sixth inning of Chicago’s game at Cleveland (box).

In terms of both of fielding-independent pitching and also just the regular kind of pitching, Rodon’s debut was not a success. He conceded three hits and two runs over 2.1 innings. He recorded a 1:3 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He entered the game with his club down 1-2. It was 1-6 when he departed.

Given Rodon’s arm speed, however, and his slider and his previously established levels, it’s unlikely that many of his future appearances will be so disappointing. In either case, what follows is a brief visual summary of Rodon from his debut.

Here, for example, is the fourth pitch of Rodon’s appearance and also the fourth ball he threw:

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When you think about it, strike zone is always a hot topic in baseball. While watching a game, there may be the odd bang-bang play at first; the occasional trap vs. catch on a sinking liner in the outfield. What is virtually a certainty is that there will be a collection of called pitches over the course of the game that cause one side to take issue. The hitter lowering his bat and starting down to first in anticipation of a walk, only to be stopped in his tracks by a strike call. The pitcher glaring in at the umpire after a close pitch fails to go his way, perhaps shaking his head in disgust. There are simply so many more of these judgment calls made in every game than any other, that they are bound to spur at least a modicum of debate.

With that said, in the 2015 season there is additional cause to pay particular attention to the way the strike zone is being called. My research has shown that the strike zone has been expanding in recent seasons, especially at the bottom of the zone. This growth has directly led to fewer runs scored around the league, which appears to be one issue that new commissioner Rob Manfred is concerned about in his efforts to improve the experience for fans of the game. Based on this information, MLB’s Playing Rules Committee is reportedly monitoring the strike zone in 2015, with an eye to potentially making a change to the rulebook definition of the strike zone as early as 2016 if it is deemed necessary.

So let’s check in and see how the strike zone has been looking so far in 2015. As with any look at two weeks’ worth of baseball, we don’t have the same richness of data to work with as we do when analyzing information collected over a full season. Using my method of breaking down the front plane of home plate into a square inch by square inch grid, the perimeter of the strike zone looks a little more jagged than it will once the season progresses and the sample of called pitches in each bin rises.

Nevertheless, there are some lessons that can be learned simply by comparing the opening weeks of 2015 to the first month of 2014. Consider both the calculated size of the strike zone as well as the size of the strike zone less than 1.75’ off the ground, the cutoff point I’ve identified where the expansion is clearly visible.

By my measurement of the strike zone, while the bottom of the zone has grown ever so slightly over April of last season, its overall size is actually smaller. Early strikeout rates are off as well, which is not surprising given the proven correlation with strike zone size.

It’s a bit of an interesting twist; the bottom of the zone still appears to be holding firm if not expanding, but the overall size is declining. It would appear the majority of the decline has occurred for left-handed hitters, mostly through shaving off part of the inside corner of their called strike zone, which is still per usual shifted about two inches toward the outside edge of the plate. The right-handed hitter zone is barely smaller than in April last year, with the few square inches of difference spread around equally.

How will the strike zone develop as the season marches on? We’ll provide regular updates here and at The Hardball Times to track its progress.

As noted in Sunday’s column, Koji Uehara has thrown 24 pitches this season, and 21 of them have been splitters. Even for a two-game sample, that’s pretty extreme. Only one other pitcher – Red Sox teammate Edward Mujica (57.6%) – has thrown a splitter with more than 50% frequency in the early going. Last year’s leader was Chicago’s Zach Putnam, at 56.1%, while Uehara was right behind him at 47.5%.

The Boston closer has fanned four of the six batters he’s faced, so you can’t argue with the results. But it’s hard not to wonder where his fastball is, and whether he trusts it right now. Uehara is 40 years old and began the season on the disabled list due to a hamstring injury.

Pitching coach Juan Nieves told me Uehara is healthy and has “one of the best fastballs in the league; an invisible fastball.” He said he’s fine with that many splitters, and if Uehara “keeps putting up zeroes, he can use it as much as he wants.”

I asked Ryan Hanigan, who was behind the plate for both appearances, if he’s ever called such a high percentage of a particular breaking pitch. He said he hadn’t. I also asked if throwing almost exclusively splitters was the plan going into each of Uehara’s outings. He told me it wasn’t.

Uehara won’t continue to throw 87.5% splitters, but he’ll certainly feature it in the months to come. According to his catcher, it’s not only effective, it’s more than one pitch.

“He can throw it for a strike and he can throw more of an action pitch to get more sink,” said Hanigan. “He can play with it and let it run a little bit. He can do different things with it, at different speeds, and he’s got real good command of it. There will be times we’ll go with the heater more often, but I’ll call the splitter at any time.”