In recent weeks, Dave Cameron and Jeff Sullivan have written about why the Minnesota Twins are unlikely to be the first-place Minnesota Twins much longer. Paul Molitor’s team is 31-21 (pending the outcome of today’s game), but for reasons outlined in the articles, a descent in the standings – possibly a steep one – is imminent.

Unless it isn’t. What if they continue to outperform their expectations and their peripherals? What if the Twins are this year’s Orioles?

There are similarities. Baltimore has made an art form out of winning close games and confounding skeptics, and that’s what Minnesota has been doing. Neither team is star-laden or in possession of an ace. Each has a manager whose attention to detail is borderline obsessive.

I brought up the Orioles comp to Molitor before today’s game, expecting him to pooh-pooh it. Instead, he lent credence to the idea that his team is somewhat akin to last season’s surprise AL East champs. Read the rest of this entry »

My debut post at FanGraphs took a look at Twitter engagement metrics for every major-league team’s official Twitter account during the off-season. I promised a follow-up analysis to see if anything changed, and a lot did. The Cubs moved past the Mariners as the most engaging team on Twitter, and the Pirates produced the most media tweets in May.

Full details of the analysis can be found in the original post, but to summarize, we are looking at what teams use the most media and what teams are engaging with their fanbases the most over the month of May. Numbers are no substitute for quality engagement or customer service, but these metrics do shed light on how MLB teams are using their official Twitter accounts.

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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.