When I first learned about a mysterious cabal of smart nerds who were analyzing baseball, I took the words I got from them as though passed down from heaven. I read Moneyball, of course. But I also read about DIPS theory, wOBA, and whatever else I could get my hands on. I read The Book so many times I wore it out and had to buy a new copy. It felt like there were cheat codes just under the surface of the sport that someone was highlighting for me.

Many of those lessons from 15 years ago are still kicking around in my head. I’m skeptical of BABIP-driven hitters, perhaps more skeptical than I should be. I dismiss batters with anomalous platoon splits, even if there’s something about them that really does make them unique. And recently I realized that I might be misunderstanding the signaling value of strikeout rate.

Back in the early 2000s, batters who struck out more hit better. That sounds counterintuitive, because strikeouts are bad. It’s actually not that weird though. Barry Bonds struck out more than Ozzie Smith in his career, just to pick two illustrative examples. Bonds isn’t even a great example, because his batting eye was otherworldly. Alex Rodriguez struck out twice as often as Omar Vizquel.

The popular opinion was that strikeouts weren’t really a negative indicator. A strikeout was bad, sure, but it was often a hidden indicator of some positive process under the hood. No one would say that being sore is good for your health, and yet people in great shape are probably sore more often than sedentary types, what with all the exercising. Amount of time spent being sore very likely has a positive correlation with health.
Read the rest of this entry »

The 2019 Yankees may have been the best direct-to-video sequel ever. Usually these types of movies are the worst, mainly cheap forgettable cash-ins missing all the actors who were some of the biggest reasons the original was good. At various times, the Yankees lost Luis Severino, Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, Didi Gregorius, Dellin Betances, Miguel Andújar, Aaron Hicks, and others. But surprisingly, everything just kinda worked out. DJ LeMahieu earned a place at the back of the MVP ballot, the pitching held together, and the team got tremendous years from Gio Urshela and Mike Tauchman. The Yankees didn’t win the World Series, but they got closer than almost every other team in baseball, light years away from being, say, A Christmas Story 2 starring Daniel Stern, a movie that actually exists for some mysterious reason.

The Yankees survived the injuries, but it certainly wasn’t the desired outcome going into the year. Unfortunately for the Bronx Bombers, history has started repeating itself very quickly, leaving the team with the prospect of entering the 2020 season with a whole new slate of crucial injuries.

At the time of the ZiPS projection post for the Yankees, they were forecast for an obscene 102-103 wins (which would have been the best-ever ZiPS win projection). While this wasn’t with injury-free assumptions — ZiPS was already skeptical about the health of Hicks, Stanton, Severino, and James Paxton — this projection assumed that most of the stars would have healthier seasons. Paxton’s surgery to remove a cyst from his spine and the initial reports of Severino’s forearm soreness reduced these playing time estimates, dropping the Yankees to a “mere” 100 wins in the first public ZiPS run for the year. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in November, I wrote a piece on spin mirroring in which I broke down the phenomenon and its applications, along with theories on its effectiveness. There have been some misconceptions about how spin mirroring actually works. I’m going to attempt to break down how to create “true” (or parallel) spin mirroring, which is based on much more than just opposite spin directions. Spin direction, spin axis, tunneling, and “seeing” spin are all factors that make up this phenomena.

The premise of the strategy is based on a hitter’s potential to recognize spin and the pitcher having the ability to tunnel two pitches, which can create a repelling effect in terms of opposing Magnus force. This juxtaposing effect can create a large spread ratio between the tunnel point and the position of the pitches when they cross home plate. So long as the spin direction contrast is somewhere between 170 and 190-degrees, and their gyro degrees (where the spin axis is pointed in space) are similar, true spin mirroring can be facilitated.

The below example shows how spin direction and the spin axis of two pitches are affected by the contrary Magnus effect (as well as gravity), which creates the appearance of them almost pushing off from each other. There is no additional force from the balls themselves acting on each other; it’s simply how each pitch, individually, responds to this law of physics:

One thing I want to point out as we dive into this is that the Driveline EDGE tool I’ll be using doesn’t account for gravity, drag, or the effect seam orientation might have on ball flight, as well as any park factors like air pressure. These are provided to add visual context to reinforce my statements. That isn’t to say the tool doesn’t have uses otherwise; it relies more on the movement the pitcher is able to generate by himself, which is elaborated on here. Read the rest of this entry »

Gavin Lux is one of most-promising young hitters in the game. He’s also among the most intriguing in terms of presentation at the plate. Ranked second on our 2020 Top 100 Prospects list, the 22-year-old Los Angeles Dodgers infielder has a swing profile that is both atypical and lethal in its execution. Eric Longenhagen saw fit to devote over 100 words to it when putting together Lux’s scouting profile.

The Kenosha, Wisconsin native has made several changes since being drafted 20th overall in 2016 out of Indian Trail High School. The results speak for themselves. Last year, Lux’s left-handed stroke produced a .346/.421/.607 slash line and 26 home runs between Double-A Tulsa and Triple-A Oklahoma City. A September call-up followed, with Lux logging a .705 OPS over 82 plate appearances in his first taste of major league action.

Lux broke down his mechanics, and his overall approach to hitting, last Friday.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe your setup?

Gavin Lux: “I’ve kind of played around with different setups. The most comfortable is with my base a little wider. That helps me feel like I’m in the ground. It’s kind of like how when you’re guarding a guy in basketball you’re not going to be super narrow. So being wider, but not too wide — a little more than shoulder-width apart — is what works for me. I’m a pretty loose mover, so I need some tension to feel strong and like I can do damage.

“I’ve been that way since probably 2018. For me it’s more of an athletic setup. I do a lot of different moves, or unconventional moves, that maybe a lot of people don’t.”

Laurila: Has anything else changed since you entered pro ball?

Lux: “Yeah. I mean, a lot. Now I kind of do like a reverse barrel tip. You see Chris Taylor doing it, also. It helps me delay my back elbow. Before, I’d always get super tight. Laying my barrel off my back shoulder kind of relaxes my shoulders and back elbow. That’s helped me get on plane more, and hit the ball in the air more.”

Laurila: Have you adopted what some people refer to as a launch-angle swing? Read the rest of this entry »

All winter long we wait for spring to arrive so that baseball may begin again. And then once it starts and our precious stat columns begin being filled in Florida and Arizona, we spend most of the preseason assuring each other that none of it matters: The success is a mirage, achieved against a lower caliber of pitching, and the struggles are the result of experimentation and readjustments.

No need to panic. No need to celebrate. Let’s all just sit here in the sun and be happy that baseball has returned, while making sure to maintain an appropriate emotional response to afternoons full of practice games. Stat farming, percentage calculating, theory formulating, tantrum throwing, sadness having; that’s all for the regular season, as the nightly pace of baseball wears us down to the nub.

Here in spring training, we’re safe from such things. Unless! We cross that arbitrary threshold that we’ll say is right about now. Context is important in the preseason, if nothing else is, and in the case of two veterans, their spring performance has made the regular season in front of them a little more interesting.

Let’s just say it: Chris Davis looks amazing. And to echo what’s probably being said in his own head, who even cares why? Davis has to muscle his way out of a deep, deep hole into which the Orioles threw a base salary of $23 million last season as part of his seven-year, $161 million deal that will see him make over $1 million a year through 2037. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2019 Minnesota Twins hit, roughly speaking, all of the home runs. That’s not precisely accurate of course, but it’s close enough for government work; they set an all-time record for home runs. Of the 12 Twins who came to the plate 300 times in 2019, 11 hit 10 or more bombs. Bomba Squad isn’t just a nickname; it’s an accurate description of a team filled to the brim with home run hitters.

This article is about that 12th Twin. Luis Arraez had 366 plate appearances last year. He hit just four home runs. That was the sixth-lowest home run total among players with 350 or more PA, and the names below him aren’t inspiring; Billy Hamilton, Tony Wolters, Yolmer Sánchez, Nicky Lopez, and Dee Gordon weren’t exactly offensive powerhouses.

All told, only 29 batters hit less than 10 home runs in 350 or more plate appearances. That reflects the democratization of home runs, but it also means that it’s difficult to contribute offensively without dingers. In fact, 27 of those 29 players had a wRC+ below 100. The only two exceptions? Nick Markakis, who squeaked over the finish line with nine bombs and a 102 wRC+ — and Arraez, who batted .334/.399/.439 on his way to a scintillating 125 wRC+.

It’s not weird, not even a little bit, that players who don’t hit home runs are generally bad at offense. There’s no single outcome as helpful to a team’s cause as a home run. If you had to predict a player’s offensive output and you could only have access to one outcome type, you’d pick home runs, right? Walks might be okay, and doubles might be as well, but singles? Triples? Heck, throw in BABIP and strikeouts if you want. Nothing comes close to home runs. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about Padres outfield un-fun facts, then discuss MLB’s $1 million “The Vault” competition to predict several statistical leaders of the 2020s, producing their picks in each category, reviewing how hard it would have been to pick the winners of the 2010s, and ruminating on the nature of baseball predictions and the inexorable impending decline of Mike Trout.

Audio intro: Tacocat, "Crystal Ball"
Audio outro: Tame Impala, "Let it Happen"

Link to MLB’s vault competition
Link to Dan on Trout’s inevitable decline
Link to Ben on Lords of the Realm
Link to Sam’s last Pujols pain post
Link to Trout baby video
Link to Smith LASIK surgery story
Link to order The MVP Machine

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Like a fast-moving prospect, the novel coronavirus — or rather, concerns about what precautions to take in order to protect players amid the epidemic caused by its spread — has reached the majors. No games have been canceled yet, but on Monday, after a conference call with all 30 team owners, Major League Baseball announced its plans to join forces with the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer in limiting media access to players due to concerns about the COVID-19 outbreak. As of Tuesday, locker rooms and clubhouses have been temporarily closed to news media and any non-essential personnel, with media access to uniformed personnel shifted to designated locations, and barriers have been put in place to enforce a minimum distance of six feet between reporter and subject.

A barrier area has been set up for reporters outside the Yankees clubhouse: pic.twitter.com/rTmftoDa94

— James Wagner (@ByJamesWagner) March 10, 2020

Admittedly, this is hardly the biggest sacrifice to be made at a time when schools and other institutions are being closed, and people are getting sick or even dying amid an epidemic that has infected over 113,000 people in 110 countries and appears to be rapidly advancing in the US, with 647 confirmed cases and 25 deaths spread across 35 states as of Tuesday afternoon (the estimated total number of people infected in the US may be an order of magnitude higher, but a shortage of tests is slowing the pace of confirmations). Yet it’s a move that should hit home to anybody reading this, not only because the quality of the coverage will suffer but because the decision highlights the tension between for-profit leagues and public health concerns. It also raises questions about the steps that the league has not yet taken and what could happen if even more drastic measures are required. Read the rest of this entry »

The Astros received some bad news about Justin Verlander’s health yesterday after he left his spring start early on March 8. The results of his MRI showed a lat strain and he’s been shut down without a timetable to begin a throwing program. His availability for opening day is definitely in jeopardy and it wouldn’t surprise me to see him miss at least the first month of the season as he ramps up his workload during extended spring training.

Losing Verlander for any amount of time is concerning for the Astros because their depth behind him is rather lacking, as Jay Jaffe explained yesterday. The loss of Gerrit Cole, Wade Miley, and Collin McHugh has left the back end of the Astros rotation rather open. And with Verlander out for the foreseeable future, that opens up another spot temporarily. Zack Greinke, Lance McCullers Jr., and Jose Urquidy should hold down the first three places, leaving two to a group filled with question marks. Josh James, who was likely leading the competition for the fifth spot, likely earned a role in the rotation with Verlander’s injury. That means the battle for the final spot comes down to Austin Pruitt or Framber Valdez, with Forrest Whitley an extreme long shot.

Both Pruitt and Valdez have collected less than 200 innings at the major league level, though Pruitt is already 30 years old while Valdez is just 26. Neither has been all that impressive during their short big-league careers. Valdez has the raw stuff, including a plus curveball and a mid-90s fastball, but he simply can’t control it. Pruitt doesn’t have the same raw stuff, but his repertoire has elements that are intriguing. There may be enough there that the Astros can tinker with to help him reach his ceiling. Read the rest of this entry »

If you follow the baseball news cycle, you’ve undoubtedly discovered that baseball players get hurt quite often. By the time the first official pitch was thrown to mark the beginning of the 2018 season, 118 players had been placed on what was still being called the Disabled List. There were 129 players on the Injured List prior to Opening Day 2019.

As of today, nine players have been placed on the 60-Day Injured List and 50 others are projected to begin the season on the IL; history tells us that this number will likely only grow as the season creeps closer. Injuries are a big part of the game and, thus, roster depth is integral to building a competitive team each offseason. But even our grim familiarity with injuries can’t lessen the frustration of a season-ending elbow injury, which can often interrupt parts of two seasons for a pitcher.

When an elbow injury is undiagnosed or unresolved, or its severity misunderstood, a player risks having surgery and the subsequent recovery process delayed by 4-6 months. Instead of missing just one full season and reporting to the following year’s spring training approximately 16 months removed from Tommy John surgery – see Lance McCullers Jr. – a starting pitcher can end up missing one full season and at least a few months of another, and that’s the best-case scenario. Relief pitchers can return sooner, although it’s not uncommon for the wait to be just as long.

Diagnostic delays contributed to Luis Severino’s suboptimal recovery timeline. The Yankees right-hander, who underwent Tommy John surgery on February 27, experienced forearm soreness during the 2019 playoffs after missing much of the year with a rotator cuff injury. While MRI and CT scans during the offseason did not reveal any issues, it wasn’t until he experienced renewed soreness in spring training that a dye contrast MRI revealed a partial ligament tear. (The explanation for not having the dye contrast MRI done earlier, despite a more accurate detection rate, was that it can sometimes cause joint inflammation.) The Yankees will now be lucky if Severino is back in action by next July. Read the rest of this entry »