September call-ups, both high-profile and totally innocuous, have been trickling in over the transaction wire for the last several days. As always, there are some that will have real impact on the playoff race, some that are interesting for the purposes of player evaluation, such your usual spare lefty reliever and catcher (by far the most common types of September additions), and some teams with no new names at all. Below I’ve compiled notes on every player brought up by National League teams since the start of the month, no matter how inconsequential, and I slip some rehabbers and August 31st acquisitions in here, too. It’s a primer for you to get (re)acquainted with players who might impact the playoff race or seasons to come.

Contenders’ Reinforcements

Atlanta Braves — INF Johan Camargo, RHP Chad Sobotka, RHP Jeremy Walker, LHP A.J. Minter, RHP Bryse Wilson

Camargo didn’t hit with the big club at all this year, not even in late July or all of August when he was handed pretty regular at-bats filling in for an injured Dansby Swanson. But he hit .483 over the few weeks he was down in Gwinnett after Swanson returned and Camargo was optioned. He’ll be a versatile, switch-hitting bench piece for the stretch run, and he projects as that sort of premium bench player long-term.

Sobotka and Walker were optioned to make room for the multiple relievers Atlanta acquired at the deadline. Sobotka, who sits 94-98 with life and has a plus, 2900-rpm slider, posted a 16-to-2 strikeout to walk ratio at Triple-A since being sent down. You may see him pitching big innings this month. Walker has been throwing 25-pitch, 2-inning outings with three days of rest in between. He may be on mop-up or long relief duty. Read the rest of this entry »

As a fan, you know the feeling. Some years, everything just comes together, as if by magic. Pitchers find that extra gear, hitters come through under pressure so repeatedly you’re ready to believe clutch is a skill, and even the bit players rise to the occasion. Such was the Cinderella season of Team Entropy in 2018, the culmination of my long-running efforts to track the seemingly endless possibilities for end-of-season chaos. Last year, for the first time in MLB history, the baseball gods gave us a pair of Game 163 tiebreakers, specifically to determine which teams would win the NL Central and West crowns, and which would play in the NL Wild Card game. It was a beautiful bounty of baseball, the kind I dreamed of when I began this project in 2011.

That year, you may recall, the Rays and Cardinals snatched spots away from the collapsing Red Sox and Braves, respectively, on the season’s final day. Writing for Baseball Prospectus at the time, I coined the phrase “Team Entropy” — taking a page from the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that all systems tend toward disorder — to describe the phenomenon of rooting for scenarios that produced such mayhem. I’ve returned to the concept on an annual basis, tracking the possibilities for end-of-season, multi-team pileups that would require MLB to deviate from its previously scheduled programming.

The idea is that, if you’re a die-hard fan of a team trying to secure (or avoid blowing) a playoff spot, flag-waving for your squad of choice generally takes precedence, but if you’ve embraced the modern day’s maximalist menu of options that allow one not just to watch scoreboards but also to view multiple games on multiple gadgets, You Want more. More baseball in the form of final-weekend division and Wild Card races. More baseball in the form of extra innings and tiebreaker scenarios topped with mustard and sauerkraut. TVs, laptops, tablets, and phones stacked like a Nam June Paik installation so that you can monitor all the action at once, and you want the MLB schedule-makers to contemplate entering the Federal Witness Protection Program instead of untangling once-far-fetched scenarios. Welcome to Team Entropy, friends. Read the rest of this entry »

At the end of June 2017, observers could have seen Gavin Lux’s performance as a 19-year-old in the Midwest League and been underwhelmed. Despite a solid 11.1% walk rate and 18.7% strikeout rate, the 2016 first-round pick was hitting .211/.304/.303. The skepticism that often surrounds high school position players from northern states followed Lux through his amateur and early professional days, and the Kenosha, Wisconsin native did little to allay those concerns.

Meanwhile, believers took a glass-half-full view of his performance at that point. A cold-weather player who shows good plate discipline and bat-to-ball ability in full season ball is nothing to scoff at; a middle infielder with athleticism and feel to play has a high floor. And the makeup for which Lux was lauded was thought to be a potential developmental separator, as the shortstop continued to gain strength and make swing tweaks.

Fast forward to the present day, a bit more than two years later, and the Dodgers have called up the 21-year-old, who notched his first two major league hits in his debut on Monday. After recovering in the last two months of 2017 to hit .244/.331/.362 with 27 stolen bases in the Midwest League, Lux turned on the burners. In 2018, he torched the Cal League through 88 games, hitting .324/.396/.520 with 41 extra-base hits. He made a 28-game cameo in the Texas League that year as well and continued to rake, hitting .324/.408/.495. Read the rest of this entry »

I attended more games here in Busan, South Korea for Days Three and Four of the WBSC U-18 World Cup. These are my thoughts on some of the prospects I saw.

Theo Millas (Canada), RHP

Millas is an LSU commit. Listed at 6-foot-4, 200 pounds, he has a very good pitcher’s frame and he looks every inch of an intriguing projectable high school guy. He also recently participated in the 2019 Under Armour All-America game, along with some of the other top high school prospects who will enter the draft next year. Millas has an easy delivery with a fluid arm action. It’s not necessarily the best tempo I’ve seen, but he isn’t overly slow either. I would be interested to see if he’s willing to increase his stride length to take advantage of his height. There’s a little stiffness in his front leg when he lands, but it’s not a huge concern for me. Against Korea on September 1, however, Millas was not his best self. While his fastball was advertised to be in the low-90s, he sat mostly in the 86-88 mph range. The pitch showed some late life, but Korean hitters were able to square it up for hard line drives all over the field. His curveball also seemed loopy, and Korean IF Jang Jae-Young squared it up pretty well for a hard, 2-RBI single. Based on all the accounts I’ve read of Millas, it felt like an off day for the righty, as he allowed six runs without recording an out before exiting the game. Millas looks like an arm who could benefit a lot from few years more worth of development.

Austin Hendrick (United States), OF

Hendrick is already known as one of the top prep draft prospects for 2020. He is currently rated eighth on THE BOARD. As expected, Hendrick flashed some serious tools during practice before the United States’ night match versus Japan. During batting practice, he displayed a smooth yet powerful swing that produced strong line drives all over the field. He has a short stroke and he times it with a little hitch and bat tip during his load. Such traits might be a concern for many hitting coaches, but Hendrick seemed to time it well enough to make it work. His hands were impressively quick, as he showed a plus ability to turn the barrel into the zone. As an outfielder, Hendrick displayed an easily above-average arm, if not plus.

As Eric and Kiley have noted in their report on Hendrick, “Hendrick is old for the class but evokes Cody Bellinger in frame and swing. As you can imagine, with the ultra-athletic swing comes with some swing-and-miss to go with the power.” That swing-and-miss tendency showed during the game. In his first at-bat against Japanese LHP Yuki Hayashi, Hendrick struck out swinging on three offspeed pitches. He seemed to favor driving the ball hard instead of making square contact. Hendrick ended up going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts. Despite a poor game performance, his tools displayed in batting practice and his physical talents seem to justify his high draft stock status. It will be interesting to see how his hit tool progresses coming into next year’s draft and how teams may evaluate his ability to handle pro pitching. Read the rest of this entry »

For the first few months of this baseball season, everything had been coming up “Belli vs. Yeli.” Of course, this was for good reason.

Since the two sluggers got off to scorching starts, the race for the National League Most Valuable Player award has centered entirely around Cody Bellinger and Christian Yelich. Major League Baseball itself basically even recognized that these two candidates had lapped the field, releasing a commercial prior to the All-Star break featuring Bellinger and Yelich playing a comical game of M-V-P.

But baseball is a long season, and even the surest things are never a given. We might just be witnessing that right now. Nationals third baseman Anthony Rendon is one of baseball’s most underrated players. Despite ranking ninth in WAR since his debut season in 2013, Rendon was finally voted in to his first All-Star game in 2019, though he did not attend. He is a player who Sam Fortier of The Washington Post described as “infamously attention-averse,” and he is also a player who just completed the third-best offensive month of his career. Anthony Rendon demands attention, and in a big way. With his excellent play last month, he might have thrust himself into the mix for the league’s highest individual player honor. Read the rest of this entry »

The Twins are undeniably one of the most exciting stories of the year. They’ve hit, and I’m approximating here, eighteen million home runs on their charge to the top of the AL Central, holding off the Indians with burst after burst of offense. Their starters are deep and talented — Martín Pérez, whose resurgence has been a fun story, is their fifth-best starter by WAR, with 1.8. José Berríos keys the unit, but Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, and Michael Pineda are all having excellent seasons.

While all the sluggers and starters have top billing on the team this year, their bullpen has been quietly excellent. They’ve been the second-best group in baseball by WAR this year, the best by FIP-, and have walked batters less frequently than any other relief corps. If win probability added is more your speed, they’re eighth in the league. A year after being below average across the board, their sterling last 30 days (3.24 ERA, 3.30 FIP, 1.6 WAR) has helped the Twins remain atop the AL Central after a brief swoon.

But calling it a group effort is misleading. They’re a group, to be sure — seven relievers with at least 20 innings pitched have posted park-adjusted FIPs and ERAs better than league average. They’re more Derek and the Dominos or the White Stripes than a true group, though. Taylor Rogers is the rock of the group, a bona fide stopper putting up his second straight dominant year of relief. He’s still best known for having a twin brother in the majors, but maybe it’s time he’s known more for his pitching than his family. Read the rest of this entry »

Entering Sunday’s games, 30 pitchers since 1908 had thrown multiple no-hitters. The list is an impressive one, including names like Warren Spahn, Max Scherzer, Walter Johnson, and Randy Johnson. There are also some less exciting names on the list with Homer Bailey, Mike Fiers, and Jake Arrieta all accomplishing the same feat in recent seasons. Of those 30 players with at least two no-hitters since 1908, 27 of the 30 had thrown exactly two such games, including Justin Verlander. After a 14-strikeout, one-walk no-hitter on Sunday, Verlander joins Bob Feller, Cy Young, and Larry Corcoran in all of baseball history three no-hitters, sitting behind only Sandy Koufax (4) and Nolan Ryan (7).

All no-hitters are impressive, as navigating an entire game without allowing a hit is a feat unto itself and generally comes with an excellent defensive performance combined with a great outing from the pitcher. Verlander’s no-hitter is one of the most impressive in recent history due to how little he relied on his teammates to complete the task. Only seven times before has a pitcher put up more than Verlander’s 14 strikeouts in a no-hitter. Scherzer put up 17 in his October 2015 no-hitter and Ryan did the same back in 1973. Ryan also struck out 16 and 15 in other no-hitters, with Clayton Kershaw getting 15 Ks in 2014 while Warren Spahn and Don Wilson also reached 15 strikeouts in their performances. Verlander’s 14 matches four others including Ryan, Koufax, Matt Cain, and Nap Rucker back in 1908. Cain, Koufax, and Rucker did not walk any batters, and the only other pitchers with at least 14 strikeouts and one walk or none were Scherzer and Kershaw. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the Cardinals, the Nationals, and the NL’s increasingly interesting playoff races, the pluses and minuses of expanded September rosters, a caveat about time-traveling to see Mike Trout’s final game, and Justin Verlander’s third no-hitter and the role of health in determining pitchers’ careers, then discuss the significance of five fun (and not-so-fun) facts: Oakland’s history of slow starts and fast finishes; Cleveland’s performance against good and bad teams, Buster Posey’s second-half swoons and the veteran stars having the most disappointing seasons; the Marlins’ attendance and baseball’s future as a remote viewing experience; and the Tigers’ lack of above-average hitters and the entertainment value of terrible teams (plus an update on Aristides Aquino and facts about fastest starts).

Audio intro: The Resonars, "Three Times Around"
Audio outro: John Doe and The Sadies, "The Cold Hard Facts of Life"

Link to Glanville on expanded rosters
Link to Sam on Stallings
Link to Sam on Statcast no-hitters
Link to article about Verlander’s low point
Link to Sam’s power rankings contributions
Link to Max Marchi on who’s ahead of whom
Link to Neil Paine on the terrible Tigers
Link to Aquino story
Link to Sam on Bellinger
Link to Sam on Yelich
Link to Ben on knuckleballs
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Luke Voit is a huge football fan. In recent years, he’s been a huge football fan without an NFL team to support. A Missouri native, Voit grew up rooting for the Rams, but the franchise relocated from St. Louis to Los Angeles while he was climbing the minor-league ladder in the Cardinals system. A void was thus created.

That jilted-lover experience is now safely in the rearview, and he has a new allegiance in mind. Voit recently bought a Sam Darnold jersey and is flirting with the idea of becoming a New York Jets fan.

“Because I’m playing for the Yankees now,” was the sturdily-built slugger’s response when I asked why that is (the Jets have gone 14-34 over the past three seasons). “I think it would be a fun connection to have. I want a team, and being in New York — I have a place there — I’ll be able to go to a game or two.“

His younger brother excelled on the gridiron. John Voit was a defensive lineman at
Army for four years, serving as a co-captain and earning the team’s prestigious Black Lion Award. Luke likely would have played collegiately himself had he not blown out his shoulder in high school. It was at that point that he devoted his full attention to baseball.

Upon learning that he’s been a linebacker, I asked Voit if he liked to hit people. His smiling response was, “Oh, yeah.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about GPS, resisting the urge to take the bait on bad takes, and the debate about access for broadcasters who double as team personnel, answer listener emails about not replacing broken bats, earning/working walks, and players with underutilized skills, and close with a discussion of Félix Hernández’s future and some podcast metacommentary (plus a postscript about another unintended consequence of mercy rules).

Audio intro: Tame Impala, "Be Above it"
Audio outro: Pete Townshend, "You’re So Clever"

Link to Meg on the 12-minute game
Link to Marc on double-duty broadcasters
Link to article about broken bats
Link to order The MVP Machine

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 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
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 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

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