Roughly one month into the 2019 season, we’re still in Weird Stats territory. So long as we are, it’s worth appreciating the extreme numbers some players are putting up before they vanish into the ether, and few players are more reliably extreme than Joey Gallo. I checked in on him in last week’s visit to the furthest reaches of hitter performance, but since then, something else he’s doing — not unrelated — has captured my attention.

While it seems that Gallo has been around forever — he was a first-round pick in 2012, made his first top-100 lists in ’14, and debuted in June of the following year — he’s still just 25 years old and has two full seasons and some fragments under his belt. In both of those seasons (2017 and ’18), he reached the 40-homer level, struck out about 36% of the time (with over two Ks for every hit), walked a good deal, and finished with batting averages in the low .200s. For all of the extremes, he produced WARs of 2.8 in both seasons, with better defense as a near-full-time outfielder in the latter season (as opposed to shaky third base play in the former) which offset his wRC+ drop from 121 in 2017 to 110 in ’18. That’s a solidly above-average player before you factor in the added entertainment value he brings with his light-tower power. Here, have a 442-foot homer:

In this young season, Gallo has been something quite a bit more than solidly above average, hitting .284/.393/.689 through Wednesday. He entered Thursday ranked second in the AL in slugging percentage, tied for fifth in homers (eight), sixth in wRC+ (172), and tied for 11th in WAR (1.0). I’ll get to some of the less flashy particulars below, but what drew me in last week was his 62.5% home run-to-fly ball ratio, more than double a 2017-18 rate (28.8%) that ranked fourth in the majors; he’s since dropped to 50.0%, and will continue to fall even if he does remain the highest among qualifiers. What caught my eye in following up was his average exit velocity to date: 99.1 mph, tops in the majors.

Admittedly, exit velocity is not the be-all and end-all of Statcast measures. Launch angle matters, for one thing; 99 mph with a 15 degree launch angle, for example, produces an expected batting average of .726, while 99 mph with a -15 degree launch angle produces an average of .206. A writer-friend who knows much more about Statcast than I do suggested that hard hit rate (balls with an EV of 95 mph or above) might be a more useful gauge of Gallo’s current hot streak, but intuitively, it’s more difficult to grasp what a 50% hard hit rate means, or, in Gallo’s case, a 65.9% rate, without additional context (it’s second in the majors). A 99.1 mph average exit velo? That’s a lot of smoked baseballs. In Gallo’s case, 25 of his 44 balls in play have been hit at 105 mph or higher. Read the rest of this entry »

Unless you’re a time-traveling visitor from 900 years in the future, you’ve probably heard that the Bronx Bombers have been struck by a rash of injuries early on this season. Among the more eyebrow-raising of those maladies was the revelation that key setup reliever and very tall human Dellin Betances had been sidelined with a bone spur. As Randy Miller reported for NJ.com:

What’s really interesting about Betances’ ordeal this week – his setback in Tampa, return to New York and second MRI – is Friday night’s revealing that he’s been pitching with a bone spur in his throwing shoulder since high school that never has affected his pitching.

More interesting, GM Brian Cashman said on Friday night that the Yankees have known about the bone spur since Betances had an MRI before signing his first pro contract as a teen in 2006 … and Betances saying Saturday morning that he first heard of it on Friday night.

That’s right – it appears the Yankees knew for over a decade that their right-handed relief ace had a bone spur, and they didn’t tell said right-hander about it.

“I guess from the previous MRIs I’ve always had it,” Betances said Saturday. “I didn’t know about it until now. But, yeah, I’ve always had it. I always come into spring and I feel, I guess .. a little stiff, But for me it usually gets better and this time it wasn’t. That’s pretty much what happened.”

Why did the Yankees never tell Betances about his bone spur?

“He hasn’t had the inflammation before,” Cashman said. “On the various testing we’ve done since we signed him … (After) drafting (Betances) I gave him a $1 million to sign rather than go on to college, and you do a physical and there’s an MRI, and right away that was (a bone spur that was) an incidental incident, meaning it’s not affecting him.

“There is something there. It’s inconsequential, non-symptomatic. He hasn’t had to deal with this. It’s had no affect on his game or pitching in anyway shape or form. The various times we imaged him, if it was for insurance or whatever reason, it’s always been there, but it’s never been something that’s caused a problem.”

There’s a lot to unpack here, but let’s start with this: the Yankees not only knew that Betances had a bone spur, they imaged it for insurance purposes. At the same time, they didn’t tell Betances because, as Cashman put it, it was “incidental” and largely asymptomatic. The uniform Major League Baseball contract required Betances to warrant that he has “no physical or mental defects” that would “prevent or impair” his ability to play baseball. The Yankees knew Betances had such a defect, and didn’t tell him. Worse, they had a number of contentious arbitration hearings with the right-hander. In hindsight, Randy Levine’s comments that Betances was “a victim” of his agent’s “overreach,” and comparison of Betances to an astronaut, seem even worse when one considers that the Yankees knew Betances had a medical condition and had seemingly disclosed that to insurance companies but not the player himself. Read the rest of this entry »

Matthew Boyd is one the 120 pitchers who have been featured in our ongoing Learning and Developing a Pitch series. In an installment that ran last June, the Detroit Tigers southpaw spoke of how he was introduced to a slider at Oregon State University, and later tweaked his wrist action to give the pitch more consistency and depth. There’s more to the story than was divulged in that telling
— especially when you consider that further fine-tuning has occurred over the past 10 months. Boyd’s slider is better than it’s ever been.

Right now, the lefty is a better pitcher than he’s ever been. Five starts into the season, Boyd boasts a 3.16 ERA, a 2.41 FIP, and has fanned 39 batters in 31.1 innings. The sample size is admittedly small, but there are nonetheless reasons to believe that the 28-year-old Seattle-area product is starting to come into his own. The slider — a pitch he’s throwing 38% of the time — is a big reason. Boyd discussed the offering’s evolution earlier this week.

———

Matthew Boyd: “I’ve worked on it at Driveline a ton in recent years. I worked with Matt Daniels, with Taiki Green, with Kyle [Boddy]. We were just drilling that thing. We got it to a point where it was high-80s, and it was good, but it was inconsistent. It got better, but in 2017 it kind of fell off a little bit, so we worked it again.

“It really started taking off when I was able to match up my delivery. I had been landing in different spots — my land foot would vary by three or four inches, compared to the pitch before. When you have that type of inconsistency with the lower half, it’s going to put your body at changed angles. One degree of wrist angle on the pitcher’s mound is something like 17 inches on the front. That’s huge, right? When I was able to get that consistency… stuff I worked on at Driveline was huge. Things started taking root before [the 2018 season]. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the long-awaited promotion of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., baseball-watching etiquette at a bachelorette party, and Mike Trout if he weren’t trying, then answer listener emails about Rhys Hoskins, Jacob Rhame, and the latest unwritten-rules flare-up between the Phillies and Mets, Tyler Wade, Andrelton Simmons, and a questionable application of replay view, how home-plate umpires would perform with transparent players, what type of MLB players they’d prefer to be, how best to distribute 50 WAR across a career, the odd assortment of baseball players (and fees) on Cameo, balls bouncing into the strike zone, and the potential effects of a bigger and/or heavier baseball.

Audio intro: Camera Obscura, "Number One Son"
Audio outro: Jenny Lewis, "The Next Messiah"

Link to Vlad tweet
Link to Mets/Phillies events
Link to video of hidden-ball trick
Dave on slide replay reviews
Link to Ben on Trout’s defensive improvement
Link to baseball listings on Cameo
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.

Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., 3B, Toronto Blue Jays
Level: Triple-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 1   FV: 70
Line: 2-for-5, HR

Notes
The Blue Jays have an off day Thursday, so Guerrero will make his debut Friday at home against Oakland rather than play a road series at Lehigh Valley where I was hoping to see him this weekend, though this serves the greater, baseball-watching good. I don’t have too much to add to what we wrote for the Jays list aside from some ephemeral nuggets.

Guerrero came to camp heavy, and was visibly bigger than he was last fall. He had a strained patellar tendon last year, and an oblique strain this spring. Let’s hope these issues aren’t chronic and don’t cause him to prematurely slide down the defensive spectrum, though he’ll hit enough to render it moot even if it occurs.

After rehabbing in Dunedin to start the year, Guerrero joined Triple-A Buffalo on April 11 and took just one home plate appearance for the Bison before his promotion as they have mostly been on the road while he was with them, and had a home series against Scranton decimated by rain. The 38 games Vlad played for Buffalo were the fewest he spent at any affiliate. Pour one out for Bob Rich, Jr., I suppose — just wait until it thaws.

Pavin Smith, 1B, Arizona Diamondbacks
Level: Double-A   Age: 23   Org Rank: tbd   FV: 40
Line: 3-for-5, HR, SB

Notes
Like his college teammate Matt Thaiss, Smith had strong peripheral stats as an amateur but desperately needed a swing change in pro ball to hit for enough power to profile at first base. After slugging under .400 as a college hitter in the Cal League last year and looking overmatched in the Fall League, there’s been some movement in his batted ball profile early this season. After posting ground ball rates of 48.8% each of the last two seasons, Smith is lifting the ball more and his grounder rate is just 33% early on. It’s a tad too early to trust batted ball samples, but that’s a fairly striking difference. It’s still going to be a tough profile and we’re not huge Smith fans here at FanGraphs, but this might be a sign things are getting better.

Oscar De La Cruz, RHP, Chicago Cubs
Level: Hi-A   Age: 24   Org Rank: 15   FV: 40
Line: 6 IP, 5 H, 0 BB, 2 R, 8 K

Notes
This was De La Cruz’s second rehab start after returning from a PED suspension that dates back to last July. I saw one of his final spring training tune-ups, during which he was 92-94 with unusually precise command of a plus-flashing slider, and he’s only walked one batter over the two starts. His velocity has been all over the place throughout his injury-riddled career — 93-97 at his best, 88-91 at his worst — but 92-94 with command is fine. He seems like a reasonable candidate to contribute to the Cubs at some point this year, perhaps out of the bullpen if De La Cruz, who has never thrown more than 77 innings in a single season, is on some kind of innings limit.

Cody Bolton, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates
Level: Hi-A   Age: 24   Org Rank: 31   FV: 35+
Line: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 1 R, 6 K

Notes
Bolton came into some new velo last year, had a strong first half, and then was shut down with a shoulder injury and missed the rest of the year. His early-season results indicate his stuff is back, and he’s only 20 and already at Hi-A. Sinker/slider types like this sometimes don’t hold their strikeout rates as they climb, but even if Bolton becomes a No. 4/5 starter (which is how his stuff grades out on paper) that’s a steal for a sixth rounder.

Adam Hall, SS, Baltimore Orioles
Level: Low-A   Age: 19   Org Rank: 11   FV: 40+
Line: 5-for-6, 2B, SB

Notes
Hall has been scorching since late last year. He slashed .378/.441/.500 in August and is at .365/.467/.429 so far this season. He’s continued to steal bases like he did late last summer, too. Of his 22 steals last year, 15 came in August. Hall has seven bags in 16 games so far in 2019. He’s a slash and dash type of hitter and that style of play works best against bad, lower-level defenses, which is part of why he’s got a .523 BABIP right now. That’s got to come down, but this is a strong start.

Read the rest of this entry »

So here’s a thing you might see if you looked at our FanGraphs Leaderboards this morning.

That Mike Trout isn’t yet leading baseball is a surprise, and an indication that we still need some time before we start touting potential MVP candidates. Cody Bellinger is having a big year, but he put up a 138 wRC+ and four-win season when he was 21 years old. Christian Yelich was sixth in WAR last season and won MVP. Matt Chapman was seventh in WAR a year ago, Anthony Rendon was ninth, and Javier Baez was 14th. Jorge Polanco and Hunter Dozier are certainly shockers, but they are lower on this list than Paul DeJong, so it’s the Cardinals shortstop who is getting a post as he heads toward what could be his breakout season at 25 years old.

When we do an initial look at DeJong’s numbers, his .387 BABIP jumps out as unsustainable. DeJong isn’t going to put up a .343 batting average all season long. He’s not going to put up a 169 wRC+ all season long, either. He doesn’t need to in order to be one of the better players in the league, though. Since the start of last season, DeJong is just shy of 600 plate appearances and put up five wins, one of the top-30 marks in baseball despite being several hundred plate appearances behind much of the league due to a fractured left hand that cost him two months last year. DeJong’s .283 ISO does look a bit higher than we might reasonably expect, but with a .219 career ISO entering the season, it’s not like he has been without power. Even if DeJong were to drop 50 points a piece in BABIP and ISO, we’d still be looking at a player whose bat is about 30% above league average to go along with an above-average glove at shortstop. That would be roughly a six-win player, which seems rather unexpected for Paul DeJong. Read the rest of this entry »

If you know one thing about Kolten Wong, you probably know that he’s a great defender. Honestly, great defender might be underselling it. Since 2014, his first full year in the bigs, he’s third in Defensive Runs Saved at second base. Maybe UZR is more your speed? Wong is third there, too. This isn’t some trick of innings played, either — he’s fourth in UZR/150 among qualifiers. He hasn’t won a Gold Glove yet, but it’s not because he doesn’t deserve it.

If you know Kolten Wong for a second thing, you probably know him for the endless flashes of potential, the bumpy road he’s followed throughout his major league career. In 2013, when he’d barely had a cup of coffee in the regular season, he got picked off of first base to end a World Series game. After two average-ish seasons in the majors, he found himself playing the outfield (?!) so that the team could squeeze more at-bats out of… um… Matt Adams? Brandon Moss? Greg Garcia? Mike Matheny-run teams had some interesting substitution patterns, let me tell you.

In any case, whatever you know about Kolten Wong, elite plate discipline probably isn’t on your list. After all, Wong is on the field for defense. Take a look at his yearly wRC+ numbers, starting with his first full year: 90, 96, 85, 107, 98. Those numbers are totally acceptable for a premium defender (Wong’s career wRC+ bests Andrelton Simmons’), but they also lead to batting at the bottom of the lineup more often than not.

Here’s the thing, though: Wong is certifiably great at controlling walks and strikeouts. It’s not just a 2019 thing, though it’s certainly been the case so far in 2019. Take a look at the list of qualified batters with more walks than strikeouts this year:
Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon folks, and welcome to today’s chat. I’ve been buried in studying career strikeout rates and totals in anticipation of CC Sabathia’s 3,000th K, which did not go off last night (hency my shelving the piece until next week, most likely). Anyway, on with the show.

12:07

Jay Jaffe: First off, thanks for your support! I appreciate you taking the time not only to read but to think about your purchase decision, even if you did go with the lowest price (as I quite often do myself). Basically, the way it works with The Cooperstown Casebook is that I was given a significant advance up front by the publisher, which means that I don’t see any royalties until that figure is reached. And like most books, my sales have not yet reached that mark (in part because the book has not come out in paperback, though I’d make less on those copies). So I wouldn’t sweat the decision too much. I do like it when people choose to support independent bookstores in purchasing the Casebook. You can do so via indiebound.com to find, say, a local one near you; I fulfill requests for signed copies at a bookstore near me in Brooklyn, Greenlight Bookstore. https://cooperstowncasebook.com/2017/07/21/signed-copies-of-the-cooper…

12:08

Jay Jaffe: Am I the new Jonah Keri? I wrote about Clint Frazier earlier this week and now he’s on the IL.

Read the rest of this entry »

Attempting to discover pitching jewels — guys who may have some value in MLB — in international leagues is a relaxing hobby I recommend you try in your free time.

First, you will be doing something that forces you to watch (non-American) baseball all year long. The TV memberships you will need to start watching are really cheap. And there is something appealing about imagining yourself as the one who “discovered” a 2-WAR, 32-year-old pitcher for a major league team.

Of course, finding complete treasures shouldn’t be the main goal of this exercise unless you want to live in a constant state of frustration. Instead, as someone who has played this little game for years now, I have to advise that instead of searching for a potential major league pitcher, you keep an eye out for a particular pitch that could do some damage in the best baseball league in the world. It’s still a hard task, but at least your odds will look less like winning the lottery and more like being struck by lighting in an open field.

Take what I found in Efren Alexander Delgado’s changeup for example. This guy is a 24-year-old lefty starting pitcher for Guerreros de Oaxaca with no outstanding numbers in Mexico. Then again, if you look closely, you will see that he went full “Bumgarner Mode” on the 2018 Mexican League postseason: a 2.25 ERA, with 39 strikeouts and nine walks in 32 innings against tough teams such as Diablos Rojos Del México, Leones de Yucatan, and Sultanes de Monterrey.

He sporadically touches 90 mph with his fastball and has an average curveball, but he does have a magic changeup. Just watch this at-bat and try to identify who Delgado is striking out:

Yes, what you are seeing is rare footage of the only strikeout folk hero Willians Astudillo suffered in the Venezuelan Winter League last postseason while he was playing with Caribes de Anzoategui. This part of the game wasn’t broadcast (Nicolas Maduro was speaking and every Venezuelan network was forced to broadcast him), but thanks to my little birds in Venezuela, we manage to salvage this piece of baseball history. Read the rest of this entry »