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Eric and I didn’t think that there would be weekly updates for the draft side of THE BOARD this early, but the information keeps rolling in. The latest updates are almost all 2019 in nature, though 2020 prep LHP Lucas Gordon was added and 2021 Florida State RF Robby Martin continues to rise. More players have been added to the others of note section at the bottom of the 2019 rankings, pushing us to well over 200 players total, but here are some notes on the ranked portion of the 2019 list:

• Andrew Vaughn is now solidly No. 2 on the list and we’ve added a Top 100 ranking for him (52nd, just behind Mets 1B Peter Alonso). Vaughn has a little less raw power than Alonso, but the hit tool, frame, and defense are all superior, to go along with Vaughn being younger and also having comparable-to-better pitch selection. We still have Oregon State C Adley Rutschman solidly at No. 1 and well ahead of Vaughn (Rutschman would be 17th on the top 100), but catchers’ development paths are notoriously non-linear, so there is a little more uncertainty with Rutschman.
• We were the high guys on UNLV SS Bryson Stott after a down summer because we saw him dominate in the previous spring. That faith has been rewarded with Stott’s hot start, so he’s stayed steady on our board at No. 5, just behind the top four players, though he’s rising for some in the industry with less history. There’s a similar story for Orlando-area prep RF Riley Greene, who showed more swing and miss late in the summer for some scouts, but has been blazing hot early and has an improved physique. He’s rising for many scouts but doesn’t have much further up to go for us.
• The second tier of college bats behind Rutschman, Vaughn, and Stott is coming into focus, with North Carolina LF Michael Busch and Texas Tech 3B Josh Jung holding their spots, UCLA 1B Michael Toglia falling dramatically, Baylor C Shea Langeliers breaking his hamate, and Missouri RF Kameron Misner joining Vanderbilt RF J.J. Bleday in taking their spots. Bleday and Misner both have the look of above average regulars, with Bleday having more hit tool and Misner with more raw power.
• On my current trip, I saw Arizona State LF Hunter Bishop twice. He has been going insane at the plate. He’s now solidly in the first round, with a chance to move into the top half if he continues at this rate (.414/.534/.948, 8 HR in 15 games) because the tools are real (65 raw power, 60 speed). Tonight, I’ll see Houston-area prep RHP Matthew Thompson, who is trending up after a velo dip, and was 93-96 mph in his last start. Wednesday, I’m planning to see dual-sport prep CFs Maurice Hampton and Jerrion Ealy in a tournament in Biloxi, Mississippi, where Hampton hit a homer on his first swing of the season. On Thursday (crosses fingers), there’s a great triple-up back in Houston, with JuCo RHP Jackson Rutledge at 2 pm, popup prep RHP Josh Wolf at 5 pm, and Thompson’s teammate RHP J.J. Goss at 7 pm; all three are projected for the top 50 picks right now. Wolf isn’t a new name, but his velo has spiked and he’s now just behind Thompson and Goss in the Houston prep arm hierarchy.
• Other risers of note include Georgia prep SS Nasim Nunez, California preps 3B Keoni Cavaco and SS Kyren Paris, and Louisville 1B Logan Wyatt. Nunez has continued performing and is now seen as a potential plus hitter, runner, defender, and thrower, so his stature and lack of power are less of a negative. Cavaco popped up in the last few weeks and is getting top-two round buzz thanks to average to above tools across the board. Paris is the youngest player on THE BOARD and, as you may guess, is developing physically later than his class peers, but just in time to rise up the rankings. Wyatt is a totally different type of player but is a draft model darling with performance, tons of walks, and low-end everyday first base tools.
• Well-known collegiate arms like Kentucky LHP Zack Thompson and TCU LHP Nick Lodolo are ticking up just a bit, but we knew they would rank in the late first/comp round area if they performed well. Some popup college arms are making bigger jumps behind them: UAB RHP Graham Ashcraft, Butler RHP Ryan Pepiot, Ball State RHP Drey Jamison, and Xavier RHP Connor Grammes. Ashcraft has developed more feel since high school and post-Tommy John, and is now showing starter traits and huge spin rates on his fastball and curve. Pepiot has a chance to start and is into the mid-90s. Jamison flashes three plus pitches at times but is still learning to harness them. Grammes was very strong (94-97 touching 98 mph with occasional plus life, a 60-flashing slider, and decent strikes) for a few innings against Arizona State until Bishop took him deep. Grammes’ arm action likely limits him to relief, but he’s a fresh-armed conversion case.
• Auburn 2B Edouard Julien was ruled eligible by MLB last week, after it appeared he wouldn’t be. On draft day, he’ll be a 20-year-old sophomore, but he had a post-grad year in Québec at age 18 that counts as a year beyond high school. With so few Québécois in college baseball, this situation hadn’t arisen much in the past. Julien has plus raw power and a late-count approach, but may be a 40-45 bat and is fringy in the infield, so could move to LF/1B.
• Another interesting eligibility case came to light yesterday in Maine prep CF Tre Fletcher. He’s transferred high schools and is set to graduate this year, but MLB hasn’t ruled on his 2019 draft eligibility yet, though he’s expected to get that soon. Fletcher repeated 9th grade, so he would be back on track for a traditional prep career with a reclassification, with a near-class-average 18.1 age on 2019 draft day should he be eligible. It’s unclear if Fletcher is reclassifying just to get to Vanderbilt a year early or to also enter the draft process, but he’ll be a tough evaluation for scouts. He was nationally scouted over the summer, standing out for his tools at East Coast Pro, but scouts weren’t bearing down on him and he’ll face very weak competition that will start in mid-April in Maine, so there won’t be a ton of certainty around his hit tool. Fletcher is similar to Rays 2015 1st round pick CF Garrett Whitley in that he has a strong frame, plus bat and foot speed, above average power potential and some questions on his hit tool. Fletcher is a high variance, high-end 40 FV for us, likely in the 50s or 60s in the overall rankings if eligible, somewhere at the end of round two, until we can learn more.

Daniel Murphy can rake. Since breaking into the big leagues in 2008, the 33-year-old infielder has slashed .299/.344/.458. Moreover, he’s become a better hitter — a more dangerous hitter — in recent seasons. While a knee injury limited him last year, Murphy’s left-handed stroke produced 146 extra-base hits and a 144 wRC+ between 2016-2017. And now he’ll get to play his home games in Coors Field. The Colorado Rockies signed him to a free agent deal back in December.

Murphy, who could accurately be described as a hitting nerd, talked about the art and science of his craft this past weekend at Colorado’s spring training facility in Scottsdale, Arizona.

———

David Laurila: Hitting analytics are becoming an important part of the game. To what extent can they translate into improved performance? I’m referring primarily to the swing.

Daniel Murphy: “I think we were doing that even before there was a measure for it. If you talk to any hitting coach, he’s going to say, ‘I want you to get a good pitch to hit. I want you to hit it hard.’ — that’s exit velocity — ‘and I want you to impact it in the gap.’ — that’s measurable by launch angle. What’s really changed is that we can quantify, and measure, exactly what hitting coaches have always been telling us to do: Hit the ball hard, in the gap.”

Laurila: Basically, what Ted Williams was preaching 50 years ago.

Murphy: “That, and it’s measurable. If you talked to Ted, he would probably say, ‘I don’t want the infielders to catch my batted balls.’ Maybe I’d be putting words in his mouth, but that’s something I strive to do. I don’t ever want the infielders to catch my batted balls. No strikeouts, no popups, no ground balls. I want to hit line drives and fly balls. Line drives would be Position A, and if I miss, I want to miss in the air, over the infielders’ heads. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller banter about the fallout from Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s oblique injury and the signings of Adam Jones and Martin Maldonado as referenda on free agency, then answer listener emails about whether the Indians and Astros could have significantly upped their playoff odds by making more moves (and fan bases that should be aggrieved about their teams’ winter inactivity), Craig Kimbrel’s in-season negotiating leverage, whether wearing or not wearing a uniform number is a more fitting tribute, the value of scouting strengths versus scouting weaknesses, and the effects of robo umps on offense, entertainment value, and chasing pitches outside the strike zone, plus a Stat Blast about manager height.

Audio intro: The Glands, "Pie"
Audio outro: Neuseiland, "Robots of Me"

Link to Dan Szymborski on Jones and Maldonado
Link to Sam on players seeking contracts
Link to BP playoff odds
Link to Sam’s article on manager height
Link to article on the compassionate umpire
Link to article on the Bayesian umpire
Link to Baltimore/DC-area EW meetup
Link to preorder The MVP Machine

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Like Craig Kimbrel, Dallas Keuchel remains a free agent — the highest-ranked one left from our Top 50 Free Agents list, in fact — his market stalled by a quest for a longer-term deal than any team appears willing to give, at least in this frozen winter market. With Opening Day fast approaching, his current situation is worth a closer look.

Keuchel, who turned 31 on New Year’s Day, is coming off his best season since his 2015 AL Cy Young-winning campaign in terms of both volume (204 innings, after averaging 157 in 2016-17), and quality (3.74 ERA, 3.69 FIP and 3.6 WAR, compared to a 3.79 ERA, 3.83 FIP and an average of 2.5 WAR over the previous two years). Part of that is likely due to health, as a season-ending bout of shoulder soreness limited him to 26 starts in 2016, none of which came after August 27, while a pinched nerve in his neck, and further discomfort related to that issue, held him to 23 starts in 2017.

He’s not a pitcher who misses a ton of bats, instead relying on soft contact and a ton of groundballs. Last year’s 17.5% K rate was the majors’ fourth-lowest among 57 qualifiers, and even with a fairly stingy walk rate (6.6%), his 10.9% K-BB% was still the ninth-lowest among that set. Meanwhile, he was first among that group in groundball rate (53.7%) and 15th out of 47 qualifiers (500 batted ball events) in average exit velocity (87.0 mph). Over the past five seasons, he’s second in groundball rate among pitchers with at least 500 innings (60.0%) and, for the four years of the Statcast era, 22nd out of 149 (1000 PA minimum) in average exit velo (86.2 mph). Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, Major League Baseball and the independent Atlantic League announced a partnership to test certain rule changes that could be coming to MLB. This deal is noteworthy for a few reasons. First, the introduction of an automatic strike zone suggests that the role of big league umpires could be changing. Second, the rule changes themselves, which range from the interesting to the just plain weird, suggest a continued emphasis on more balls being put in play, and greater action on the field. Third, the Atlantic League will become the first unaffiliated league with access to Trackman data, creating a more robust way of seeing potential differences between the leagues’ talent levels, and potentially creating a new pipeline for prospective major leaguers.

Let’s start with the rule changes themselves.

The following new rules will be in place for the 2019 Atlantic League Championship Season:

• Home-plate umpire assisted in calling balls and strikes by a TrackMan radar tracking system
• No mound visits permitted by players or coaches other than for pitching changes or medical issues
• Pitchers must face a minimum of three batters, or reach the end of an inning before they exit the game, unless the pitcher becomes injured
• Increase size of first, second and third base from 15 inches square to 18 inches square
• Require two infielders to be on each side of second base when a pitch is released (if not, the ball is dead and the umpire shall call a ball)
• Time between innings and pitching changes reduced from 2:05 to 1:45
• Distance from pitching rubber to home plate extended 24 inches, in the second half of the season only; with no change to mound height or slope.

Robot umpires? Robot umpires! We’ve talked before about how, given the way the ball and strike rules are currently worded, introducing robot umps would require pretty significant rule changes. Now some umpires have been maligned (often fairly) for the eccentricities of their unique strike zones. Joe West and Angel Hernandez certainly come to mind. But while having an automated ball and strike system might help, the difference might be less than you think. Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: The appointed time for chatting has now arrived.

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Needs to be a fairly deep lead

12:04

Dan Szymborski: There really aren’t a ton of guys like that, honestly

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Gausman was one but was traded last year

Read the rest of this entry »

Neither Adam Jones nor Martin Maldonado, two players who signed one-year contracts over the weekend, classify as major signings in 2019, but they do have one thing in common: both contracts say a lot about where baseball is in 2019 and convey important lessons to players hoping to improve the next collective bargaining agreement.

Let me start by saying that I do feel that there’s a payroll problem in baseball. There are multiple reasons for that problem, but chief among them is that the sport’s fastest growing areas of revenue have become increasingly decoupled from the win-loss record and gate attendance of any particular team. This has had an inevitable drag on player salaries. Teams are still motivated to win baseball games, but when winning also increases revenue, it’s going to be more valuable (and likely yield higher average payrolls) than in situations when winning doesn’t.

If a thrifty (or cheap, depending on your point of view) team doesn’t derive significant benefit in revenue sharing from winning, and only sees minimal revenues of their own as a result of a good record, wins can start to become seen as a cost rather than an investment. Wins are good, but wins and more money is better. Read the rest of this entry »

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 — Tony Barnette, Ryne Stanek, and Nick Tropeano — on how they learned and developed their split-finger fastballs.

———

Tony Barnette, Chicago Cubs

“When I was in Japan, I had a changeup as a starter. It was getting hit. Working on it in bullpens, I remember a couple of Japanese coaches, through a translator, asking me, ‘Why do you throw that pitch?’ I told them that I needed something off-speed, something to use away to lefties. They were like, ‘You’re right, you do. But that’s not it. It’s awful. You need to get rid of it.’

“A lot of guys in Japan throw a split, so they got me on that. I started playing with different grips, and found one that worked for me. If you look at a baseball, the seams are crazy. They go all over. Basically, you split your fingers and find seams. You find seams that fit your hand. Then, one day you have that ‘aha’ moment where it’s ‘Oh my god, this works.’ From there, you working on it more. Read the rest of this entry »

The majority of Mike Scioscia’s coaches accompanied him out the door when the Angels made a managerial change after last season. Their replacements came both from other organizations — pitching coach Doug White (Astros) being notable — and from internal promotions.

I’m not privy to the conversations GM Billy Eppler and/or new manager Brad Ausmus had with the outgoing staff members, but they likely uttered some form of “We’ve decided to go in another direction” when passing out the pink slips.

According to Eppler, the revamping of the staff wasn’t reflective of a philosophical shift. The decisions were driven by a desire to travel north in the standings.

“I wouldn’t say that anything changed,” Eppler told me recently. “When we came over here in 2015, we implemented philosophies throughout the organization — how we’re valuing players, how we want to coach players, and so forth. Nothing new was implemented this year.”

The characteristics Eppler is looking for — not just on the coaching staff, but throughout the organization — can be encapsulated in a single, hyphenated sentence: Read the rest of this entry »