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Imagine being a pitcher who has to face the Angels this year. It’s not hard to figure out which batter you most need to prepare for. When the Angels played the Cubs last night, Albert Pujols batted third, which is a lot less imposing in 2019 than it was in 2008. Shohei Ohtani had the night off, which meant that Tommy La Stella was the best non-Trout bat in the lineup. He’s having a good year, as Jay Jaffe noted, but unfortunately for him, he’s still Tommy La Stella. Cesar Puello batted fifth, and hey, good for him. Still, though — the scouting report was probably just Mike Trout written in various fonts over and over again.

It’s safe to say that every game the Angels play, the opposing team has spent a lot of time trying to work out a way to get Trout out. Los Angeles has a robust 109 wRC+ this year among non-pitchers, which sounds good until you realize that non-Trout Angels have a 100 wRC+. The team is scuffling — two games below .500 in a division where you might need 100 wins to topple the Astros, and potentially a little lucky to be there given their BaseRuns record. The pitching staff is essentially made of duct tape and fervent prayers — Ty Buttrey leads the staff in both fWAR and RA/9 WAR, and their starting rotation looks like a horror story told to kids to keep them from becoming Angels fans.

Amidst this chaos, this unending deluge of mediocrity, Mike Trout is putting together another masterpiece of a season. It’s boring to say, almost — his 180 wRC+ is both the fourth-highest in baseball and the lowest Trout has recorded in the last three years. Being one of the best players in baseball is old hat for him. Still, he’s improving his craft incrementally, slowly shoring up weaknesses and adding to strengths. His unintentional walk rate, a gaudy 19%, is the highest of his career. His strikeout rate, a minuscule 16%, has never been lower. Trout’s 2019 might be the best he’s ever hit, a crazy thing to say about undoubtedly the best player in baseball.

Baseball is largely a game of failure and limitations, which makes talking about Trout’s plate discipline feel somewhat surreal. Consider this — Trout has started making contact with basically everything he swings at in the strike zone. His zone contact rate of 94.9% is sixth in baseball and the highest of his career. That’s strange, because for the most part, guys who make contact with everything are contact hitters who sacrifice power to put the ball in play. David Fletcher and his .137 ISO top the list.

This makes a rough kind of sense — hitting everything you swing at in the strike zone means you are probably putting some tough pitches in play, and cutting down on your swing to make more contact means those swings generally have less behind them. That, at least, is the logic that constrains mortals. Mike Trout started hitting everything in the strike zone, and he’s still slugging .600. That slugging percentage might be selling Trout short — he has the highest xSLG (a Baseball Savant statistic that predicts slugging percentage from angle and speed of hits) of his career, a gaudy .643.

What does making contact with every pitch in the strike zone look like? Well, in 2018, Trout was great, but he was great while being only very good against high and outside pitches. Take a look at the upper righthand corner of this chart, the percentage of swings he made contact on by zone in 2018:

Pitchers know about this marginal weakness, and they do their best to exploit it. The book on Trout is to get him high and away. Take a look at where pitchers are attacking him in 2019:

That’s good pitching right there. Find out where a hitter is most likely to get bad results, and aim for that spot. Maybe their focal point is a little too low, but the general idea of throwing away is certainly easy to see. Major league pitchers are tremendously skilled, and they spend countless hours perfecting their craft. That should work out to their advantage, right? Well, bad news, pitchers — this is Mike Trout we’re talking about here. Look at his contact rate in 2019:

It would be one thing to protect a weak point in your swing with some defensive hacks. Plenty of good hitters punch outside pitches the other way, sacrificing power for contact on pitches that are hard to drive. Again, though, Mike Trout isn’t “plenty of good hitters.” He’s the best hitter in baseball. Trout is punishing outside and high pitches in 2019, doing a tremendous amount of damage when he puts the ball in play:

You’re reading this chart right — Trout is now getting his greatest production on balls in play in the very part of the strike zone where pitchers are attacking him most. That, in a nutshell, is what pitching to Trout is like. You might think you’re attacking a weakness, doing your research to put yourself in an advantageous position. Trout’s better at adapting than you are; he’s better than everyone. He reacts to your changes faster than he can be solved.

Pitch location isn’t the only part of Trout’s plate discipline pitchers have focused on this year. They’ve changed how they attack him on the first pitch of a plate appearance, and Trout is yet again using that to his advantage. For years, the book on Trout was that he was patient on the first pitch to the point of somnolence; he basically never swung at first-pitch breaking balls, for instance. Over the past few years, Trout has turned this trend around, becoming increasingly aggressive on the first pitch — he swung at 19.7% of first pitches in 2017 and 18.3% in 2018, the two highest rates of his career.

To combat this trend, pitchers are going out of the zone on first pitches more than they ever have. Trout is seeing strikes on 47% of first pitches, down from his career average of 55% and below the major league average of 51%. This adjustment was largely out of self-preservation. Trout slugged 1.061 with a .485 batting average when he put the first pitch into play last year. He hit five home runs on first pitches, a career high. Sticking with get-me-over first pitch fastballs was no longer an option.

In classic Trout fashion, though, he’s turned pitchers’ adjustments into another tool in his tool belt. Now that pitchers throw him fewer first-pitch strikes, he’s simply swinging less. He’s down to a 17% swing rate on first pitches this year while still swinging at 27% of pitches in the zone. He’s also missing less — he’s swung and missed at five first pitches this year, a 2% rate that would be his lowest since 2015, the last year of his extreme passivity on first pitches. Between this improved swing discipline and pitchers avoiding the zone like the plague, Trout is falling behind in the count 52.9% of the time this year, a career low and 5.2% below last year’s level.

2019 is arguably Mike Trout’s finest batting season so far. His xwOBA of .473 is the highest it’s ever been and 30 points higher than his wOBA, suggesting that he’s been unlucky this year to put up “only” a 180 wRC+, the third-highest of his career. He has the highest walk rate in baseball and a strikeout rate in the lowest 21% of qualified batters. He’s getting on base at the highest rate in his career despite the lowest BABIP in his career (excluding his brief 2011). The two changes pitchers have made to how they approach him this year sure don’t seem to have worked.

Pitchers will try to make other adjustments. They’ll start challenging him in the strike zone more on the first pitch — maybe with offspeed pitches, something that pitchers mostly haven’t tried yet. They’ll aim inside, where Trout’s power is down this year. They’ll continue to hunt holes in his game, small edges that they can use to blunt Trout’s effectiveness.

But until I see some evidence to the contrary, I don’t think it will matter. Pitchers can adjust all they want, try any gambit they’d like. For the most part, it seems like adjusting to beat Trout only plays into his hands. Someday, Mike Trout will grow old. He’ll slow down, get worse at recognizing pitches, stop instilling terror into opposing pitchers the way he does now. That day still feels infinitely far off, though. For now, he’s three steps ahead, putting up unreal numbers while shrugging off regression. Pitchers can plan all they want. Trout won’t stop laughing his way around the bases any time soon.

A year ago, Kyle Freeland had a very good season. For some, it was almost too good. Here at FanGraphs, Freeland put up a 3.67 FIP, and playing half his games in Colorado meant a 4.2 WAR in over 200 innings and one of the 10 best pitching seasons in the National League. Freeland’s ERA was even better than his FIP, and with a 2.85 mark, his RA/9WAR was 7.5, the fifth-best mark in all of baseball. The distance between his ERA and FIP likely created a gap between those who believed Freeland was one of the best pitchers in baseball and merely a good one. The latter group thought that Freeland was in for some regression this year. After a rough two months, including time on the injured list, Freeland has been dispatched to the minors. That’s not regression. Allow me to explain.

Before being sent down, Freeland had a 6.37 FIP, a 7.13 ERA, and had given up 16 homers in 12 starts after giving up 17 in all of 2018. After last season, it’s possible some were expecting another sub-three ERA, but doing so would have been unrealistic. Expecting some regression might have meant that Freeland’s BABIP would go up from the .285 where it was a year ago and his LOB% would go down from 83%. Those numbers wouldn’t affect his 3.67 FIP, but it might take his ERA closer to his FIP. Maybe Freeland’s 8.5% HR/FB would creep up closer to average, leading to a higher FIP and ERA. In fact, projections considered many of those factors and forecast Freeland for a roughly average season with an ERA and FIP around 4.50. If regression had come for Kyle Freeland, that might have been what it looked like. If Freeland were pitching just like last season, we might expect a similar FIP and worse ERA. The problem is that Freeland isn’t pitching like he did last season. This isn’t regression (or reversion). This is Kyle Freeland being not as good of a pitcher as he was a year ago.

Freeland is a command lefty who excelled last season by pitching to his spots. In late 2018, Jeff Sullivan wrote about how good Freeland’s command had been all season, using multiple heat maps. We’ll engage in a similar exercise below, showing Freeland last year and this year. First, here are all of his pitches in 2019 compared to all of his pitches last season:

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Draft Week rolls on with breakdowns of all the picks from Day 1. We don’t do grades, as it would be silly to project how these picks are going to work out five-plus years from now the day after they happen, and because you can get a sense of our opinion of a pick from our rankings and the tone of our comments. As you can see above, there will be a podcast reviews Days 1 and 2 with a couple of minutes spent on each team, then a notebook wrap-up of the odds and ends we’ve heard when the draft concludes. For more complete reports and tool grades on these players, head over to THE BOARD.

Pitchers learn and develop different pitches, and they do so at varying stages of their lives. It might be a curveball in high school, a cutter in college, or a changeup in A-ball. Sometimes the addition or refinement is a natural progression — graduating from Pitching 101 to advanced course work — and often it’s a matter of necessity. In order to get hitters out as the quality of competition improves, a pitcher needs to optimize his repertoire.

In this installment of the series, we’ll hear from three pitchers — Alex Cobb, Ryan O’Rourke, and Carl Willis — on how they learned and developed their splitters.

———

Alex Cobb, Baltimore Orioles

“I started throwing it in high school. When you’re that age, you’ll see things on TV and try to replicate them — kind of like Backyard Baseball. I thought a splitter sounded cool, so I split my fingers on the baseball, got some action on it, and got some good results with it. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about whether it would make sense for one team to “blow up the draft” by ignoring the bonus slotting system for one year, paying a premium for the top amateur talent, and incurring the maximum financial penalty. Then they discuss Ben’s new book about baseball’s player-development revolution, The MVP Machine: How Baseball’s New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players, which is out today. (Go get it now!)

Audio intro: The Tragically Hip, "Machine"
Audio outro: George Harrison, "Try Some, Buy Some"

Link to Passan on the MLB draft
Link to first excerpt from The MVP Machine
Link to Foley’s book-signing event
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Here is our final mock draft. You can see the rest of our Draft Week content on the widget above. For those picks where we think it’s down to two guys, we’ve made note of it.

First Round
1. Orioles – Adley Rutschman, C, Oregon State
Alternative: Vaughn
2. Royals – Bobby Witt, Jr., SS, Colleyville Heritage HS (TX)
3. White Sox – Andrew Vaughn, 1B, Cal
4. Marlins – J.J. Bleday, RF, Vanderbilt
5. Tigers – Riley Greene, RF, Hagerty HS (FL)
6. Padres – C.J. Abrams, SS, Blessed Trinity HS (GA)
Alternative: Langeliers
7. Reds – Nick Lodolo, LHP, TCU
Alternative: Langeliers
8. Rangers – Brett Baty, 3B, Lake Travis HS (TX)
Alternative: Manoah
9. Braves – Shea Langeliers, C, Baylor
Alternative: Carroll
10. Giants – Hunter Bishop, CF, Arizona State
Alternative: Stott
11. Blue Jays – Alek Manoah, RHP, West Virginia
12. Mets – Bryson Stott, SS, UNLV
Alternative: Thompson
13. Twins – Josh Jung, 3B, Texas Tech
Alternative: Cavaco
14. Phillies – Jackson Rutledge, RHP, San Jacinto JC (TX)
15. Angels – Keoni Cavaco, 3B, Eastlake HS (CA)
Alternative: Thompson
16. D’Backs – Corbin Carroll, CF, Lakeside HS (WA)
17. Nationals – Matthew Allan, RHP, Seminole HS (FL)
Alternative: Kirby
18. Pirates – Quinn Priester, RHP, Cary-Grove HS (IL)
19. Cardinals – Zack Thompson, LHP, Kentucky
Alternative: Wilson
20. Mariners – Greg Jones, SS, UNC Wilmington
Alternative: Kirby
21. Braves – Kameron Misner, RF, Missouri
22. Rays – Will Wilson, 2B, North Carolina State
23. Rockies – Michael Busch, 1B, North Carolina
Alternative: Toglia
24. Indians – George Kirby, RHP, Elon
25. Dodgers – Daniel Espino, RHP, Premier Academy HS (GA)
26. D’Backs – Matthew Lugo, SS, Beltran Academy HS (PR)
27. Cubs – Kody Hoese, 3B, Tulane
28. Brewers – Hunter Barco, LHP, Bolles HS (FL)
29. A’s – Kyren Paris, SS, Freedom HS (CA)
30. Yankees – Anthony Volpe, SS, Delbarton HS (NJ)
31. Dodgers – Kyle Stowers, RF, Stanford
32. Astros – Matt Wallner, RF, Southern Mississippi

Compensation Picks
33. D’Backs – Blake Walston, LHP, New Hanover HS (NC)
34. D’Backs – Tyler Callihan, 3B, Providence HS (FL)
35. Marlins – Logan Davidson, SS, Clemson
36. Rays – Brooks Lee, SS, San Luis Obispo HS (CA)
37. Pirates – Gunnar Henderson, SS, Morgan Academy HS (AL)
38. Yankees – Drey Jameson, RHP, Ball State
39. Twins – J.J. Goss, RHP, Cypress Ranch HS (TX)
40. Rays – Brennan Malone, RHP, IMG Academy HS (FL)
41. Rangers – Nasim Nunez, SS, Collins Hill HS (GA)

Second Round
42. Orioles – Ryan Jensen, RHP, Fresno State
43. Red Sox – Cameron Cannon, 3B, Arizona
44. Royals – Ethan Small, LHP, Mississippi State
45. White Sox – Maurice Hampton, CF, Memphis University HS (TN)
46. Marlins – Josh Smith, SS, LSU
47. Tigers – Dominic Fletcher, CF, Arkansas
48. Padres – Seth Johnson, RHP, Campbell
49. Reds – Sammy Siani, CF, William Penn Charter HS (PA)
50. Rangers – Braden Shewmake, SS, Texas A&M
51. Giants – Drew Mendoza, 3B, Florida State
52. Blue Jays – Tommy Henry, LHP, Michigan
53. Mets – Brady McConnell, SS, Florida
54. Twins – Ethan Hearn, C, Mobile Christian HS (AL)
55. Angels – Chase Strumpf, 2B, UCLA
56. D’Backs – Nick Quintana, 2B, Arizona
57. Pirates – T.J. Sikkema, LHP, Missouri
58. Cardinals – Aaron Schunk, 3B, Georgia
59. Mariners – John Doxakis, LHP, Texas A&M
60. Braves – Matt Cronin, LHP, Arkansas
61. Rays – Jordan Brewer, CF, Michigan
62. Rockies – Michael Toglia, 1B, UCLA
63. Indians – Yordys Valdes, SS, McArthur HS (FL)
64. Cubs – Trey Faltine, RHP, William Travis HS (TX)
65. Brewers – Jamari Baylor, SS, Benedictine HS (VA)
66. A’s – Kyle McCann, C, Georgia Tech
67. Yankees – Rece Hinds, RF, IMG Academy HS (FL)
68. Astros – Isaiah Campbell, RHP, Arkansas
69. Red Sox – Ryne Nelson, RHP, Oregon

Compensation Picks
70. Royals – Hudson Head, CF, Churchill HS (TX)
71. Orioles – Ryan Pepiot, RHP, Butler
72. Pirates – Josh Wolf, RHP, St. Thomas HS (TX)
73. Padres – Dasan Brown, CF, Abbey Park HS (CAN)
74. D’Backs – Davis Wendzel, 3B, Baylor
75. D’Backs – Erik Miller, LHP, Stanford
76. Mariners – Tyler Baum, RHP, North Carolina
77. Rockies – Bryce Osmond, RHP, Jenks HS (OK)
78. Dodgers – Spencer Jones, 1B/LHP, La Costa Canyon HS (CA)

Below you’ll find a roundup of notable moves from the past few days, as well as future expected moves and a Minor League Report, which includes a list of recent major league debuts and a few players who are “knocking down the door” to the majors. For this column, any lineup regulars, starting pitchers, or late-inning relievers are considered “notable,” meaning that middle relievers, long relievers, and bench players are excluded. You can always find a full list of updated transactions here.

Lineup Regulars

Arizona Diamondbacks
6/3/19: OF David Peralta activated from 10-Day IL.

Peralta isn’t close to his 30-homer pace from last season, but he’s still been very good with a .309/.357/.524 slash line, seven homers and 16 doubles in 207 plate appearances. He’s right back in the middle of the Diamondbacks lineup on Monday, batting third and playing left field after missing the last 11 games with a shoulder injury.

Depth Chart | Roster Resource Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Clint Frazier has made significant contributions to a banged-up Yankees team that sits atop the AL East with a hefty 38-20 record, but his performance in Sunday night’s game against the Red Sox in the Bronx was the stuff of which nightmares are made. You know, the kind in which you not only can’t stop doing that thing you’re not supposed to do, but you’re doing it in directly in front of 40,000 people emotionally invested in your success or failure, not to mention the millions more watching on television all around the world. The 24-year-old right fielder misplayed three balls in the late innings that helped to blow open a close game, the latest manifestations of his ongoing defensive woes.

Frazier’s misadventures began in the seventh, with the score 3-2 in favor of the Red Sox following a battle between former Cy Young-winning southpaws David Price and CC Sabathia. With reliever Luis Cessa on the mound, one out, and Michael Chavis on first base following a forceout, Frazier failed to keep Eduardo Nunez’s single in front of him. The ball rolled all the way to the wall, resulting in a two-base error that scored Chavis:

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