Madison Bumgarner’s reputation as a pitcher wasn’t burnished during the regular season. Bumgarner has been mostly very good as a starter prior to October. From 2011 through 2016, he averaged 212 innings and 3.9 WAR per year. During that time his 23.3 WAR places him ninth among major league starters, which is more a low-level ace than a dominator in the form of a Clayton Kershaw or Max Scherzer. No, it was in three postseasons that Bumgarner forged his reputation, pitching another 100 innings across three playoff seasons and three championships, including earning NLCS and World Series MVP honors in 2014. With the Giants unlikely to contend this season, Bumgarner’s value to the club more likely lies as a trade chip than a bringer of championships. After struggling the last two seasons, Bumgarner is pitching better in 2019, but whether he’s back to his old level of success remains to be seen.

We are still just seven Bumgarner starts into the season, but there is a bit of optimism. In his last start, Bumgarner threw the ball harder than he has in some time on the way to six innings of one-run ball against the Dodgers during which he struck eight against just two walks. The velocity wasn’t just encouraging, it was harder than he’s thrown in years.

Other than a few starts in early 2017 before he was hurt, Bumgarner hasn’t thrown the ball with as much velocity as he did the other night on a regular basis since the 2015 season. And it wasn’t just the last start that Bumgarner has pitched well. While the velocity against the Dodgers was new, in his last four starts, Bumgarner has struck out 27 batters against just three walks in 24.2 innings for a 1.84 FIP. That four-game FIP is the best Bumgarner has put together since the 2015 season and nearly a full run lower than any stretch last year.

Bumgarner is pitching better than the last few seasons, but to get some idea about how much better, let’s take a baseline and compare Bumgarner over three different periods, plus the last four starts as a bonus. First, let’s look at some numbers most readers at FanGraphs should be familiar with. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2019 Baltimore Orioles are not very good at baseball. This should be no shock to anyone who has watched the Orioles play baseball during the last two seasons. Finally starting into a long-overdue rebuilding phase, this is a state of affairs that will likely last for several years. If you’re going to be terrible at something, however, I’m an advocate of being the best at being terrible at that thing. The 1962 Mets, with the most losses in modern major-league history, were lousy enough to become beloved in a way the 2003 Tigers or 1935 Braves weren’t. And there’s one lousy thing the 2019 Orioles are great at: allowing home runs.

Now, every team allows home runs these days, so standing out from the pack is even harder than it usually is. The Orioles have allowed 75 home runs in just 35 games, a frightening pace; it’s always a Home Run Derby when the orange-and-black are in town. Notice I said pace, Giants fans; your staff isn’t exactly amazing at keeping the ball in the park.

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2:01

bob:

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Matt Chapman is starting to come into his own as a hitter. Known primarily for his defense — he won a Gold Glove last year in his first full big-league season — the 26-year-old third baseman is slashing .295/.384/.597. He leads the Oakland A’s in all three of those categories, while his nine home runs rank second, behind Khris “Mr. .247” Davis. Moreover, he’s displaying far better discipline than he did a year ago. Along with upping his walk rate, Chapman has nearly halved his K rate. Slowly but surely, he’s becoming an offensive force.

Chapman talked about his offensive approach, which includes looking for pitches middle, middle-away, when the A’s visited Fenway Park last week.

David Laurila: I start a lot of interviews with this question: Do you consider hitting to be more of an art, or more of a science?

Matt Chapman: “Baseball, in general, is kind of like a fine line. So it’s a little bit of both. It’s an art in the sense that everybody is unique — everybody has the things that work for them — and you have to let your natural ability take over. But then there are the mechanics and the numbers. That’s the science part of it. Both are important. You can’t live and die with either.

“For me, the science part is that I see little tiny things in my swing, on video, that need to be mechanically sound. When I’m not feeling as good as maybe I should, I’ll go to the film. I don’t dissect every little thing, but there are a few things I look at. Am I on time? Am I getting in the right hitting position? Sometimes when I struggle, it’s because I’m getting a little too pull-happy. So, is my barrel up, or am I opening up and my barrel is dropping?”

Laurila: Are you looking at more video, and data, than in the past? Read the rest of this entry »

It’s amazing to write about baseball through the lens of a singular player like Mike Trout. The sheer totality of his excellence is fun in a way that just wouldn’t be true if you looked at all of his skills individually. Trout is an above-average outfielder, sure, but that isn’t all that fun by itself. He has great plate discipline — so too, though, does 2019 Jason Heyward, and he doesn’t spark the same kind of joy as Trout. No, the fun is that there’s basically no category you can come up with where Mike Trout isn’t good.

This got me to thinking: would it be fun to have a player who was like Trout, except not to quite the same degree? I don’t mean in the broad player value sense — in a way, every player in baseball is just a worse version of Trout. No, I mean someone who’s good at everything across the board in the same way that Trout is — just, a little less.

Trout hits for power, so our mystery player will need to hit for good (but sub-Troutian) power. Scratch both Joey Gallo and Jose Altuve from the list. They have to have an excellent eye at the plate and be judicious with their swings; sorry, Javier Baez, but the ride ends for you here. They need to be an above average baserunner, but not the best of the best — J.D. Martinez and Trea Turner both fall at this hurdle.

To work out this highly unscientific study, I started with stats from 2017-present for everyone who qualified for the batting title in at least one of the three years. This lets me cast a wide net without picking up someone whose prime isn’t happening now. First, I looked for players who were worse than Trout in a few categories: ISO, OBP, SLG, BsR/PA, BB%, and K%. (At this point in the search, I learned that Trout has a higher ISO than Aaron Judge, and I mean, wow.) Read the rest of this entry »

Near the end of 2017, reports surfaced of a massive deal that would see Disney buy more than $50 billion in FOX assets, including 22 regional sports networks that broadcast the games of about half of the 30 major league baseball franchises. After a bidding war between Comcast and Disney saw the latter win out, moves needed to be made to satisfy antitrust concerns. Given Disney’s already powerful place in the market with its ESPN family of channels, one of those moves included the sale of those regional sports networks. The first domino fell in March when the Yankees agreed to buy back the YES Network at a total valuation of around $3.5 billion dollars. Now, the remaining dominoes appear to have fallen, with the Wall Street Journal first reporting that Sinclair Broadcasting Group has agreed to buy the remaining 21 networks, valued at $10.6 billion.

The networks included in the deal are as follows:

Read the rest of this entry »

Aside from the cool 1911 denim throwback uniforms worn by the home team, Sunday’s Giants-Reds game was a relatively conventional affair. The Reds ran up a 4-0 first inning lead thanks in part to a three-pitch, three-homer sequence, Luis Castillo threw some devastating changeups but also gave up a game-tying three-run homer to Buster Posey, and the Giants won, 6-5. Zzzzz, right? Monday’s game, on the other hand, featured several different flavors of wild, all of them worth savoring. Twenty years from now, somebody will do an oral history of this game, and ESPN will air a 30 for 30 feature.

Let’s start with the bees. More bzzzz than zzzzz…

You thought I was kidding? A swarm of ’em delayed the start of the game by 18 minutes, perhaps a message from above about those weird wraparound series, where teams play Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday just to mess with peoples’ circadian rhythms. Or something.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the merits of True Wins vs. no-hitters, a Pablo Sandoval fun fact, whether most pitchers would prefer to be better than average with a higher ERA or worse than average with a lower ERA, and whether the running Royals are, in fact, fun, then (26:24) talk to author Joe Bonomo about his book about about The New Yorker’s Hall of Fame baseball writer Roger Angell, touching on Angell’s notes and writing process, his career arc and evolution, his facility with words, his memory and and recall, his attitude about changes in the game, his best and most overlooked pieces, his feelings about being labeled a baseball writer, the larger themes in his work, and more.

Audio intro: Smith Westerns, "Idol"
Audio interstitial: Jenny and Johnny, "New Yorker Cartoon"
Audio outro: Donovan, "Writer in the Sun (Demo)"

Link to Sam on the True Win
Link to video of Gore-Hamilton play
Link to video of Hamilton scoring from second on sac fly
Link to Roger Angell’s New Yorker archive
Link to No Place I Would Rather Be
Link to preorder The MVP Machine

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These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

I turned last Thursday’s edition in too late for publication (I lost track of time at an Extended game) but certainly won’t deprive you of the notes I have from that day. Here they are:

Xavier Edwards, SS, San Diego Padres
Level: Low-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: tbd   FV: 45+
Line: 5-for-5, 2B

Notes
After 21 Low-A games, X is hitting .390/.450/.455 and has walked more than he has struck out. He has just one extra-base hit and has been caught stealing a bunch, but even for one of the more advanced high school bats from last year’s class, this is a strong start. Gabriel Arias was just put on the IL at Hi-A Lake Elsinore and Edwards has out-performed Justin Lopez and Tucupita Marcano, so he might be in line for a quick move up depending on the severity of Arias’ injury.

Yordan Alvarez, LF/1B, Houston Astros
Level: Triple-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 7   FV: 50
Line: 6-for-8, 2 2B, HR, BB (double header)

Notes
The use of the major league baseball at Triple-A combined with the PCL hitting environment has had, um, some impact on offensive performance. It’s important to keep this in mind when considering what Alvarez has done so far, though his line through 23 games — .386/.474/.916(!) with 12 homers — is remarkable. Notably, several of those homers have come against breaking balls, which Alvarez is particularly adept at identifying and adjusting to mid-flight. He does not have a sellout, max-effort swing — this power comes easy and it plays to all fields, as seven of Alvarez’s homers this season have been opposite field shots. He was toward the back of our 50 FV group pre-season because of concerns about his body and defensive limitations, but he’s hitting like someone who belongs toward the front of that tier, up near Pete Alonso. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday was a rollecoaster for Reds righty Luis Castillo. At Great American Ballpark, he needed just 32 pitches to set the Giants’ starting nine down in order for the first time, faced the minimum number of hitters through five innings, and didn’t allow his first hit until he’d gotten one out into the sixth — all while staked to a four-run lead. Before he could escape the frame, however, he allowed a walk and two other hits, including a game-tying three-run homer by Buster Posey. Given that he’d thrown just 81 pitches to that point, manager David Bell sent him back out for the seventh. He put up a zero, and left with the game tied, but the Reds lost, 6-5. Bummer.

The outing cost Castillo his lead atop an NL ERA leaderboard that at first blush appears to be drunk, with guys like Kyle Freeland (5.90 ERA),Yu Darvish (5.79), Aaron Nola (5.06), and Noah Syndergaard (5.02, even after Thursday’s heroics) stumbling along while Zach Davies (1.56), Castillo (1.97, up from 1.45 after his previous start), Caleb Smith (2.00) and Jordan Lyles (2.20) shine.

A closer look at the 26-year-old Dominican’s numbers shows that his spot there is no fluke. Castillo has shaken off last year’s sophomore slump with a performance reminiscent of his tantalizing 15-start rookie season from 2017, asserting his spot among the majors’ upper echelon of starters. Prior to Sunday, he hadn’t allowed more than two runs in any start this season, a performance that earned him NL Pitcher of the Month honors for April. In 50.1 innings though Sunday, he’s second in ERA, strikeouts (59), groundball rate (57.8%), and WAR (1.4), fourth in strikeout rate (30.3%), fifth in home run rate (0.54 per nine), and sixth in FIP (2.89).

Recall that Castillo, who was originally signed out of the Dominican Republic by the Giants in 2011, and traded to the Marlins in 2014 and the Reds in 2016, was effectively treated as a lottery ticket in deals that respectively sent Casey McGehee and Dan Straily the other way. He was also dealt to the Padres and back again in a mid-2016 pair of trades that centered around whether San Diego had been forthcoming regarding Colin Rea’s elbow issues.

Though renowned for a fastball that could reach 101 mph, he cracked only one major prospect list, placing 94th on that of ESPN’s Keith Law in the spring of 2017. Law graded his changeup as plus but noted that his third pitch was a fringy slider. Baseball America, which placed him second on its Marlins list that same spring but still shy of its Top 100, praised his easy velocity, projected his slider as above-average, and noted that “he has a feel for a power changeup, but he’s still finding the right grip. It has the potential to be an average pitch as well.” Our own Eric Longenhagen, who had Castillo 10th on Cincinnati’s 2017 list, described the slider as flashing plus and the changeup as ” below average but there’s good arm speed here (that should be obvious, this guy bumps 100) and it could get to average with reps.”

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