While the Dodgers’ bolt from the gate isn’t too surprising given their back-to-back NL pennants and preseason playoff odds around 90% (though yes, I reaaaally nailed the timing of my investigation into their hitting), the Mariners’ hot start is the kind of early-season anomaly that reminds us how reality often fails to conform to our preconceptions. Expected to be a bystander during a rebuilding year, Seattle opened the season by sweeping a two-game series in Japan against last year’s upstarts, the A’s, and has continued to roll. They own the majors’ best record (11-2) and run differential (+40) so far.

The Mariners did spend most of last year in contention, ultimately notching 89 wins — their highest total since 2003 — but finishing eight games behind the A’s for the second AL Wild Card spot. In missing out on the October festivities, they ran their postseason drought to 17 years, the longest in North American professional sports. Given a club record payroll ($157.9 million as of Opening Day 2018) and the game’s worst farm system, general manager Jerry Dipoto opted to plunge the team into rebuilding mode, bidding adieu to free agent Nelson Cruz and trading away Robinson Cano, Alex Colome, Edwin Diaz, James Paxton, Jean Segura, and Mike Zunino, among others — nearly all of the popular kids, basically. With Kyle Seager suffering a torn tendon in his left hand, the only players common to Seattle’s 2018 and ’19 Opening Day lineups were Dee Gordon, Mitch Haniger, and Ichiro Suzuki, the last of whom used the Japan series as a farewell tour. Read the rest of this entry »

This past Sunday’s notes column included Trevor Williams on the subject of pitcher won-lost records. As was pointed out in the piece, the Pittsburgh Pirates righty probably deserved better than last season’s 14-10 mark. On eight occasions he got either a loss or a no-decision despite allowing three-or-fewer earned runs.

His wins weren’t gift-wrapped. Not by a long shot. Ten times he went at least six innings without allowing a run — that was the most in the majors — and he was nearly as stingy in the others. Only five of the enemy combatants who crossed the plate in Williams’ 14 W’s went onto his ledger. At season’s end, his 3.11 ERA stood seventh-best in the senior circuit (min. 170 innings).

Not bad for an 26-year-old hurler who, for all intents and purposes, was acquired in exchange for a pitching instructor.

As Pirates fans are well aware, his ascent began in July. Williams went into last season with a 4.36 ERA in 163 big-league innings, and through 19 starts he was holding that form to a T. His ERA was exactly what it was on Opening Day. Then he morphed into Greg Maddux. Over his final baker’s-dozen outings, Williams allowed just 11 runs — four of them in his lone clunker — in 71.1 frames. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re talented enough to make it to the majors, you often have had to make a series of adjustments to maximize your potential and survive in the league. If you are really talented, knowing yourself and being open to changes can really put your name on the map. Yandy Diaz is really talented. We’ve raved about his tools and uber-muscular physique. The Rays are giving him a starting opportunity pretty much every day, which is exciting; they have to be excited by the return as well.

So far in 2019 (all statistics are as of April 9), Diaz has turned in a .308/.386/.615 line with a 183 wRC+ and three home runs. The Rays have gotten what they have hoped to get from him in the first 10 games. Diaz’s underlying numbers — not only this year, but also from the years prior — testify to his strength. In 2017 and 2018 with Cleveland, Diaz hit for average exit velocities of 91.5 and 92.1 mph, respectively, which was well above the league average of 87.4 mph. He also was an extreme ground-ball hitter. In 2018, his launch angle was 4.4 degrees, much lower than the league average of 10.9. As a result, 53.3% of his batted balls last year were grounders, which, if he had had a qualified number of at-bats, would have ranked in the top 10 in the entire league.

Because Diaz has such a low launch angle, all he has to do is swing up, elevate, and celebrate, right? It’s not exactly that simple. In midst of baseball’s fly-ball revolution, we have seen instances of players actually trying to swing more “level.” Last year, Jeff Sullivan noted Joc Pederson and Kyle Schwarber’s adjustments. Kris Bryant also saw strides in his production after adjusting his swing to spend more time in the zone. We have many other success stories in which hitters benefited from, well, learning to lift the ball. The point is that the equation isn’t so simple. If it were, every hitter would be enjoying success by altering their swings in the same way. It is a league-wide trend, for sure, but there are things that work for some and don’t for others.

Diaz is a special case though. Because he is such an extreme groundball hitter who can also hit the ball hard, it could be worth it for him to experiment with different approaches to become his best self in the majors. It might not work out, of course. But because of his above-average exit velocity, it could pay off quite handsomely. Look at his home run versus Gerrit Cole from earlier this season.

Readers, that was smoked. It traveled for a 112.2 mph exit velo with a distance of 420 feet. It’s been documented that Diaz can hit for average (he had a .311/.413/.414 career line in the minors and hit .312/.375/.422 with Cleveland last year), but what raised my eyebrows were his 2019 power numbers. Increased power production is usually a product of some sort of change. Think Jose Bautista with his leg kick and Justin Turner with Doug Latta. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the beautiful things about baseball is that history is always being made. During every season, every game, every pitch, we may witness something that has never happened in the long history of this sport.

This offseason, the Twins made baseball history in a different way than I think you were expecting. They hired Wes Johnson, then the University of Arkansas’ pitching coach, to join their big league staff, serving in the same role. According to this story from La Velle E. Neal III in the Star Tribune, Johnson became the first pitching coach in baseball history to move directly from college to the majors. And, at the time, he was believed to be the first coach or manager of any kind to make this transition since Dick Howser left Florida State to manage the Yankees in 1980. That’s some legitimate baseball history there.

What was even more interesting about the Twins’ hire was Johnson’s pedigree as a pitching coach. From Neal’s story:

[Johnson] studies biomechanics. He uses analytics. He is into the gadgets teams invest in to help train pitchers. He earned a reputation in college as a velocity expert, someone who can help pitchers throw harder — although he says it’s difficult to do once a pitcher is no longer in his teens.

Perhaps the story of the Twins hiring a pitching coach who “uses analytics” might not sound all that exciting to you; you likely assume big league coaches use analytics at this point. But the change represented a real organizational philosophy shift. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Seuly Matias, RF, Kansas City Royals
Level: Hi-A   Age: 20   Org Rank: 1   FV: 45+
Line: 3-for-4, 2B, 3B
Notes
Matias’ 34% career strikeout rate is a sizable red flag that ultimately is what kept him off our overall prospect rankings. With a few exceptions, even the most whiff-prone big leaguers struck out less than that when they were in the minors. But so gifted and physically dominant is Matias that we think he’ll be effective, even if it’s in a streaky, inconsistent way like Domingo Santana or Carlos Gomez. As a teen, he was already posting exit velocities on par with burly, Quad-A type hitters. We hope he learns to take a walk, but “Randal Grichuk with more raw power” is a good player, so we’re cautiously optimistic that the Royals at least have a good big leaguer here, and a potential superstar if there’s contact/approach refinement, which is admittedly easier said than done.

Nolan Gorman, 3B, St. Louis Cardinals
Level: Low-A   Age: 18   Org Rank: 3   FV: 50
Line: 2-for-5, 2 HR
Notes
The Cardinals gave Gorman some reps with the big league team during spring training, and a scout told me they thought it would make Low-A, where Gorman struck out 37% of the time for a month of 2018, appear slower and easier by comparison. He has reached base in each of his 2019 games, and six of his 10 hits have gone for extra bases. We considered Gorman one of the more advanced high school bats in last year’s class (he and Jarred Kelenic were the only two in that top tier) and thought he might move quickly if the strikeout issues that popped up during his senior spring could be remedied. It looks like Gorman is just going to strike out a little more than is ideal, but he also appears poised for a quick move to the upper levels of the minors. When is the right time for promotion? I’d give opposing pitchers the chance to make adjustments to Gorman, and vice versa, which means waiting until mid-May when he sees Beloit, Quad Cities, Wisconsin, and Cedar Rapids for the second time. If he hits until then, and those clubs can’t find a way to get him out the second time they see him, perhaps we see Gorman in Hi-A just after he turns 19.

Joey Bart, C, San Francisco Giants
Level: Hi-A   Age: 22   Org Rank: 1   FV: 55
Line: 2-for-5, HR, 2B, BB
Notes
Nothing to see here as Bart should be expected to hit for power in the Cal League both because of its offensive environment and because last year he teed off on ACC competition, which is second only to the SEC, in my opinion. It’s ironic that the top two picks in last year’s drafts seem likely to be ready for the majors well before their parent club is likely to be competitive, but perhaps it will behoove the Giants to move Bart to Double-A semi-early this summer if for no other reason than to get him working with that pitching staff, which I think has more future big league teammates on it than the group in San Jose does.

Josh Naylor, DH, San Diego Padres
Level: Triple-A   Age: 21   Org Rank: 11   FV: 50
Line: 3-for-6, 2 2B
Notes
Naylor should be monitored closely because he’s the type of hitter who could explode if he makes a relevant approach change. He has both huge raw power and excellent bat control, but his willingness to offer at pitches he can’t drive had limited his power output until 2018, when he homered 17 times at Double-A. If he learns to attack the right pitches, he’ll hit so much that it won’t matter that he doesn’t really have a defensive home. As Naylor is just 21, we’re cautiously optimistic that he will. It’s too early to draw conclusions from his stats but his pull% is currently much higher than is usual.

Trying New Things
I noticed two odd things while combing box scores last night. First, Astros prospect Myles Straw (17th on the Astros list) has been playing shortstop. A quick perusal of the interwebs unearthed this article in the Houston Chronicle, which reports that the Astros will give this a try for a few weeks and see if Straw can actually play there. Their upper levels have been so crowded with outfielders that many of those players have been traded, and seeing as Straw’s best tool (his defense) is made redundant by Jake Marisnick, it makes sense to explore his defensive versatility.

Similarly, the Rangers are trying 1B/LF/3B Andretty Cordero at second base. Unlikely to do enough damage to profile at first (where he’s seen the most time), Cordero’s bat was still notable enough to include him in the Others of Note section of the Rangers list. Should he prove passable at second base, he’ll be much more relevant.

Former shortstop Javy Guerra of the Padres has moved to the mound, and I’ve been told he’s sitting in the upper-90s with natural cut. He’s on the San Diego 40-man.

Mike Clevinger was forced to leave his Saturday start against the Blue Jays after five innings of one-hit ball and 10 strikeouts. This was disappointing, but the initial reports were promising, with Clevinger expressing that it was a precautionary measure. Given that he was ultra-dominating over his first two starts, the hope was that it was a minor back strain that wouldn’t prove to be more than a brief setback. Those hopes were dashed this morning with Cleveland manager Terry Francona stating that it would be six-to-eight weeks until Clevinger would even pick up a baseball, and unless he meant that Clevinger had secretly developed a method for telepathically launching crippling sliders and curves, this amounts to Bad News.

It’s especially poor timing for Clevinger considering what a roll he’s been on to start the 2019 season. If his back was bothering him before, his performance gave no indication. Against the White Sox on April Fools Day and the Blue Jays on Saturday, Clevinger combined for 22 strikeouts and two hits allowed over 12 innings and had yet to be scored on. Admittedly, this was against the White Sox and the Blue Jays, two teams with very poor offenses, but he didn’t just dominate two bad teams, he pretty much turned their offenses into armies of Chris Davis clones. (Note for budding mad scientists: this theoretical would not be a good use of your resources). Clevinger even added a couple mph in fastball velocity this year, continuing his pattern of making one of his pitches absolutely frightening each season. Previously mostly used to set up his curveball and slider, his fastball was at +3.8 runs for the year, already his career high!

The good news is that in the early analysis at least, it appears that Cleveland’s simply being careful with Clevinger. Careful would be a kind way to describe a rather disappointing offseason, largely fueled by three of the other four teams in the AL Central being terrible and the remaining team one that saw Cleveland’s free agent apathy and actually reduced the team’s payroll. Running the numbers, the loss of Clevinger barely puts a ding in the team’s playoff odds, but what is of interest is what option the Indians go to. Unlike in some cases, the best fill-in for Clevinger is non-obvious. So let’s arbitrarily rank some candidates from best to worst! Read the rest of this entry »

The Dodgers juggernaut was stopped in its tracks on Monday night in St. Louis. For the first time in this young season, the team failed to homer, and for the second time, they failed to score at least four runs, and for just the third time in 11 games, they lost. Still, there’s much for the two-time defending NL champions to be happy about at this point in the season, particularly compared to last year.

Recall that it took the 2018 Dodgers until the third game of the season to get on the board, as they lost their first two games by 1-0 scores, both courtesy of Joe Panik solo homers. With a lineup lacking Justin Turner and a bullpen coping with a struggling Kenley Jansen, they stumbled to a 4-9 start, took until the 19th game of the season to score their 87th run, and didn’t really right the ship until mid-May, after they’d dug a 16-26 hole and lost Corey Seager for the season due to Tommy John surgery.

It’s been a different story this time around. On Opening Day, the Dodgers pounded out a major league record eight home runs against the Diamondbacks, and so far, they haven’t looked back. Through 11 games, they’re 8-3 with 87 runs scored, the most by a team to this point in the season since the turn of the millennium:

As you might expect, bashing out so many runs so early often portends good things. While “only” eight of the 18 teams above besides this year’s Dodgers and Mariners made the playoffs, five of those 18 teams (including the Boston Americans, who became the Red Sox circa 1908; the Milwaukee Brewers, who became the St. Louis Browns in 1902; and those Baltimore Orioles, who were dissolved and replaced by the New York Highlanders in 1903) were battling it out in the inaugural edition of the American League, which must have been crazy circa April and May, 1901; the Junior Circuit averaged 5.35 runs per game that year overall, compared to 4.63 in the NL. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Once again, we’ve done a refresh of all of our draft rankings. They get tweaked multiple times per week in subtle ways, but every few weeks they need a larger overhaul when there are over a dozen guys who have moved around in the key spots. That’s what happened this weekend. We reset the trend arrows a few days ago to clean things up a bit visually. Here are some notes on where we stand now:

• There is now a level of comfort amongst scouts with the hierarchy of college pitching in this year’s draft. TCU LHP Nick Lodolo is the consensus number one, West Virginia RHP Alek Manoah is the consensus number two, and Elon RHP George Kirby is most scouts’ third choice. Some scouts have Kentucky LHP Zack Thompson third, but he’s had durability issues dating back to high school, so when his medicals come out, he could go anywhere from 10th to 40th.
• As for high school pitching, it’s a big more muddled. I’m heading out tonight to see the guy who most feel is the best prep pitcher in the draft, Florida prep RHP Matthew Allan. Behind him, most scouts have another Florida prep RHP (whom I’ll see Friday), Brennan Malone. Illinois prep RHP Quinn Priester’s area kicks off a bit later than the Sunshine State but some scouts had him up to 97 mph in his last start, so he may jump into that top tier with Allan and Malone after another couple starts. New Jersey prep RHP (and son of Al) Jack Leiter was good in front of lots of heat last week at NHSI, and he’s probably next in the pecking order, with months of speculation that it’ll take $3 million or more to keep him from going to Vanderbilt. This, along with the varied rankings of prep pitching from team to team, likely makes him a target for an overslot bonus later in the first round by a club with multiple picks (similar to how the Cardinals landed Jack Flaherty).
• Some preferences in the early picks are becoming clearer. It still seems like Adley Rutschman at one (Orioles) and Andrew Vaughn at two (Royals) are the two easier ones to project with what we know at this point (the full draft order and slots can be found here). Rutschman’s lead at the top spot is still significant, so it would take a major injury or an uglier-than-expected medical to make Vaughn a real option at the first pick for Baltimore. The buzz is that the White Sox are leaning heavily to college prospects for the third pick, with Nick Lodolo in the mix along with the next tier of college hitters, which can be ranked any way at this point (UNLV SS Bryson Stott, North Carolina 1B Michael Busch, Vanderbilt RF J.J. Bleday, Arizona State LF Hunter Bishop, Missouri RF Kameron Misner is the way we have them lined up right now). There’s similar buzz that Miami is also looking hard at college options and that Lodolo is in their mix. Things get a bit hazier beyond that and also depend on the picks at three and four. The general feeling is that this top 10 isn’t strong enough to make every club just take the best player available, so there’s some chatter that clubs picking outside the top five may take a money saver with the first pick and move that money to float a prep prospect to their second pick. That strategy may be more fraught than normal this year with Arizona in possession of a $16 million bonus pool and set to pick 16th, 26th, 33rd, and 34th.
• We’re up to 271 total players in the 2019 list now and we’re adding to the 2020 and 2021 lists weekly. We also have a handful of 2022 prep names ready for when the unsigned 2019 prep players join that class as college players. I’m starting a Florida swing this week and should see all of the potential first rounders in the state along with a couple Florida State League games. Last weekend, I saw Nasim Nunez, Louisville/Clemson, UNC/Georgia Tech, UNC Wilmington/Kennesaw State, Georgia/Vanderbilt, and a Triple-A game between the Braves and Orioles affiliates. Eric is running around the Pacific Northwest and he’s always bouncing around the backfields and local amateur games back in Arizona. We’ve got new Sony high speed cameras, so stay tuned to the FanGraphs Youtube page (Mackenzie Gore or Ryan Jensen) and Instagram account (Austin Riley or Michael Busch) to see what we’ve been seeing on the pro and amateur end of things, likely at 960 frames per second.
• Georgia has seemed like it was on the verge of being a top tier program for decades, with all kinds of built-in advantages, and now it appears to be coming together. The 2020 group is strong, headlined by the top two pitchers in the class (RHP Emerson Hancock and Cole Wilcox) along with the Saturday starter (LHP C.J. Smith), and the 2019 class also has a potential first day headliner (3B Aaron Schunk) along with solid day two depth pieces (RHPs Tony Locey and Tim Elliott, SS Cam Shepherd). The top tier SEC programs (LSU, Vanderbilt, Florida have been the top tier recently) often have more than a half dozen top 5-7 round prospects for the next two drafts, a strong freshman class, and a strong high school senior crop. Georgia is joining a number of other strong programs (Arkansas, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Ole Miss, Auburn) in challenging for an extended stay in the top tier, and some would argue a few of those already have.
• Along those lines, Miami hasn’t broken through yet, but has a very strong 2020 class with five players (SS Freddy Zamora, 3B Raymond Gil, 1B Alex Toral, RHPs Slade Cecconi and Chris McMahon) on THE BOARD, while only being slated to lose one player who’s on the 2019 list (RHP Evan McKendry).

By far the best part of writing for FanGraphs is you, our readers. That’s not just because if you didn’t exist my words would simply be shouted into the void and I’d be talking to myself. Over the past year, you’ve sent me dozens of really thoughtful questions about the intersection of baseball and the law, and the fast pace of current baseball events (and my day job) has meant I haven’t been able to respond to half as many as I would have liked. So we’re starting this feature to provide a place where you can get your baseball law questions answered. If you have a question for the mailbag, go ahead and hit me up on Twitter @Ring_Sheryl, or email me at Sheryl@sherylringlaw.com. A couple of quick disclaimers: these are questions about general baseball concerns only; I’m not going to give you legal advice or tell you how to handle your own personal legal issues. Also, your questions might be condensed or rephrased for space purposes. We’ll do this as often as the question volume allows and necessitates. Thank you in advance for your questions!

Jeremy asked: Hi Sheryl. I read your article a while back about the hypotheticals of giving Mike Trout a lifetime contract. Regarding California law, does this mean that the Dodgers (for example) couldn’t offer a contract to Bryce Harper that’s longer than eight years (if they wanted to)?

Mike Trout just signed a big extension with the Angels that will guarantee the future Hall of Famer $430 million over the next twelve years. Remember, however, as Nathaniel Grow explained a couple of years agom, California, like many states, has a law which caps the length of employment contracts.

A relatively obscure provision under California law — specifically, Section 2855 of the California Labor Code — limits all personal services contracts (i.e., employment contracts) in the state to a maximum length of seven years. In other words, this means that if an individual were to sign an employment contract in California lasting eight or more years, then at the conclusion of the seventh year the employee would be free to choose to either continue to honor the agreement, or else opt out and seek employment elsewhere.

As we discussed before, most states (with Illinois being the most notable exception) include either a statute or common law doctrine barring lifetime contracts, though not all include a requirement that the contract be capped at a specific number of years. Does this kind of law have an impact on the offer being made by the team?

The answer is actually pretty straightforward, and we can use Trout’s deal as an example. As Nathaniel explained,

Section 2855 would allow a player to opt-out of a contract after year four of a six-year contract extension, so long as he has been employed by the team for a total of seven or more years. Because of this precedent, some California companies require their employees to spend at least one day “unemployed” – i.e., not under contract with the company – every seven years in order to avoid the application of Section 2855.

What does that mean? The Angels’ contract is still legally binding. Section 2855 is simply an additional term of the contract implied by law, and creates an opt-out by operation of law. In other words, when the Angels offered the twelve-year contract extension to Trout, the law simply added another term not written down: that of Trout’s right to opt out after seven years. This is important, because a number of media outlets reported the contract had no opt-outs. But that’s not entirely true – California law allows Trout to opt out after seven years. Notably, the same is true of Manny Machado’s deal; he, too, can opt out after year seven. But it is not, notably, true for Bryce Harper – Pennsylvania law allows for employment contracts of any definite term.

Waldy asks: What happens if a player collides with an umpire during a play? Is it considered interference?

The official Major League Rules discuss umpire interference in Rule 6.01(f):

If a thrown ball accidentally touches a base coach, or a pitched or thrown ball touches an umpire, the ball is alive and in play. However, if the coach interferes with a thrown ball, the runner is out.

This doesn’t cover Waldy’s exact hypothetical, but you’ll notice it also doesn’t mention what happens if a batted ball collides with an umpire. For that, we need Rule 5.05(f)(4), which gives a batter an automatic hit where “[a] fair ball touches an umpire or a runner on fair territory before touching a fielder. If a fair ball touches an umpire after having passed a fielder other than the pitcher, or having touched a fielder, including the pitcher, the ball is in play.”

But neither of these Rules prohibit an umpire from colliding with a player. In fact, in the Comment to Rule 6.01(f), that scenario isn’t even mentioned, except in the context of catchers throwing to bases:

Umpire’s interference occurs (1) when a plate umpire hinders, impedes or prevents a catcher’s throw attempting to prevent a stolen base or retire a runner on a pick-off play; or (2) when a fair ball touches an umpire on fair territory before passing a fielder.  Umpire interference may also occur when an umpire interferes with a catcher returning the ball to the pitcher.

Generally speaking, that means that an umpire does not commit interference by making contact with a player other than the catcher. So if an outfielder or infielder collides with an umpire while trying to make a play, and the ball drops, the play continues even if the umpire was at fault.

DJ Asks: Are there any independent audits of salary arbitrations in MLB to make sure the arbitrators follow the rules?

In a word, no. Now, under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the MLB Players’ Association has the right to audit “any particular transaction” of a team. If we give the broadest possible meaning to the term “transaction,” we could argue that this language includes arbitrations, which in theory would give the MLBPA audit rights of arbitration proceedings. Now, this is a pretty stretched interpretation; under the CBA, a “transaction” is an instance in which a player signs a contract with a team, or two teams make a trade, or a team is sold. So an arbitration isn’t so much a “transaction” as it is a device meant for conflict resolution. And as far as I can tell, even if the MLBPA believes it has audit powers over arbitrations, it has not – at least publicly – exercised those audit rights. And the CBA is explicit that arbitration awards are confidential.

 There shall be no release of the arbitration award by the arbitration panel except to the Club, the Player, the Association and the LRD. The panel chair shall initially inform the Association and the LRD of the award only and not how the panel members voted. The panel chair shall disclose to the Association and the LRD the individual votes of the panel members on each March 15 following the February hearings.

Although we know that teams have individual audits conducted on their own financial data, it doesn’t appear that those audits include arbitration results. And because the arbitrators don’t issue written findings, the result is that we don’t really know how or why an arbitrator makes a particular decision. That’s a feature of the system, not a bug, designed to protect the sanctity of the process. Whether or not it’s a good idea I leave for you to decide.