| 9:07 |
: Hello friends |
| 9:07 |
: Welcome to Friday baseball chat |
| 9:07 |
: And welcome to what is almost a long holiday weekend! |
| 9:07 |
: Thank you for already mentally checking out from work so that you can participate in this exchange |
| 9:08 |
: What do you think? Was it a foul ball or a foul bunt? |
| 9:08 |
: I lean pretty strongly toward foul ball. I do not believe that Lorenzen had intent to bunt that pitch |
When Aaron Judge went down with a wrist injury at the end of July, the Yankees didn’t appear to be a club in dire straits. While there would be no replacing the American League’s 2017 WAR leader, the team would still be in decent shape, having entered the season with three talented outfielders beyond Judge in Brett Gardner, Aaron Hicks, and Giancarlo Stanton.
Things haven’t quite worked out as expected, though. Stanton has played mostly designated hitter, while Gardner has struggled offensively. The result: a possible weakness in the lineup where one wasn’t anticipated. With the Yankees’ acquisition of Andrew McCutchen, however — a deal first reported by Buster Olney — the lineup should benefit considerably.
Joel Sherman has reported that two prospects would go back to the Giants if and when the deal is confirmed, including infielder Abiatal Avelino. The 23-year-old reached Double-A in 2016, spent some time in three levels last year, and moved back and forth between the two highest minor-league levels while destroying Double-A pitching and struggling in Triple-A.
Update: Jim Bowden is reporting the other player in the deal Juan De Paula, currently a starter in Low-A, and Jon Heyman reports that the Giants and Yankees are splitting the roughly $2.5 million remaining on McCutchen’s deal.
A week ago at the site, Craig Edwards endeavored to find a new home for Andrew McCutchen. The outfielder had just cleared revocable waivers and, with the Giants’ season effectively over, appeared destined to finish the 2018 campaign with another club. Which club, precisely, wasn’t clear. Whatever team he joined, however, would likely both (a) possess a reasonable chance of making the postseason and (b) feature a clear weakness at a corner-outfield spot. McCutchen, in other words, would have some value to a contending club receiving less-than-ideal production from either its left or right fielder.
To identify the most probable landing spots for McCutchen, Edwards published the following graph, featuring the projected rest-of-season WAR figures for each contender’s corner-outfield positions, with the stronger entries to the left and the weaker ones to the right. Towards the middle of the graph was a mark denoted as the McCutchen Line. McCutchen would, in theory, represent an upgrade at all the posts to the right of that line.
As I write this, there are 115 different pitchers this year who have thrown at least 100 innings. Among them, Kyle Freeland ranks tied for seventh in ERA-, at 62. The pitcher with whom he’s even: one Clayton Kershaw. The next pitcher down the list: one Justin Verlander. Now, we’re a site that loves its peripherals, and, indeed, if you sort by, say, FIP-, Freeland doesn’t look quite so good. But he still looks strong. According to a peripheral-based version of WAR, Freeland has been a plus. According to a runs-based version of WAR, Freeland is a viable candidate for the NL Cy Young.
I don’t hesitate to say that Freeland has been overlooked. He doesn’t get the attention of rotation-mate Jon Gray, because Gray throws that sexy power stuff, and he gets those sexy strikeouts. Freeland doesn’t do as much of the basic stuff that analysts look for, so he’s flown for this long under the radar. But if you’ll allow me some freedom here, I’d like to invoke a couple all-timer names. The images might be able to speak for themselves.
Notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.
Note from Eric: Hey you, this is the last one of these for the year, as the minor-league regular season comes to a close. Thanks for reading. I’ll be taking some time off next week, charging the batteries for the offseason duties that lie ahead for Kiley and me.
D.J. Peters, CF, Los Angeles Dodgers
Level: Double-A Age: 22 Org Rank: 7 FV: 45+
Line: 4-for-7, 2 HR, 2B (double header)
Notes
A comparison of DJ Peters‘ 2017 season in the Cal League and his 2018 season at Double-A gives us a good idea of what happens to on-paper production when a hitter is facing better pitching and defenses in a more stable offensive environment.
| Year | AVG | OBP | SLG | K% | BB% | BABIP | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | .276 | .372 | .514 | 32.2% | 10.9% | .385 | 137 |
| 2018 | .228 | .314 | .451 | 34.0% | 8.1% | .305 | 107 |
Reports of Peters’ physical abilities haven’t changed, nor is his batted-ball profile different in such a way that one would expect a downtick in production. The 2018 line is, I think, a more accurate distillation of Peters’ abilities. He belongs in a talent bucket with swing-and-miss outfielders like Franchy Cordero, Randal Grichuk, Michael A. Taylor, Bradley Zimmer, etc. These are slugging center fielders whose contact skills aren’t particularly great. Players like this are historically volatile from one season to the next but dominant if/when things click. They’re often ~1.5 WAR players who have some years in the three-win range. Sometimes they also turn into George Springer.
You couldn’t blame Eric Hosmer or Christian Yelich if they got sick of hearing about Statcast. Anyone who’s ever played with the basic tools has been able to discover two things: (1) historically, Hosmer and Yelich have hit the ball hard, and (2) historically, Hosmer and Yelich have hit the ball on the ground. It became easy to wonder what might happen if Hosmer and Yelich set their sights on the skies. It just so happened that, last offseason, both of those players changed teams. Might they have also been willing to change their swings? It’s not that it wasn’t interesting. It just started to grow a little tired.
Hosmer hasn’t changed. That much I can tell you. Through five months of baseball, he’s got a below-average batting line and a below-replacement WAR. He has the highest ground-ball rate he’s ever posted. But then, Yelich is currently sitting on a career-high wRC+. He’s sitting on a career-high slugging percentage. He’s also technically sitting on a career-low ground-ball rate.
Don’t get the wrong idea, though. Yelich’s average launch angle hasn’t budged from last season to this one. He remains a ground-ball and line-drive hitter. In part, he’s just benefiting from playing in Milwaukee instead of playing in Miami. And in part, he’s benefiting from another change. It’s not one that has to do with his swing. Rather, it’s one that has to do with his approach.
As far as the ordinary rules are concerned, the strikeout on a foul bunt is unusual. Unlike a swing and miss, a foul bunt involves contact, and unlike a foul tip into the glove, a foul bunt isn’t caught. Plus, as players are constantly reminding us these days, bunting is hard, far harder than people think. But baseball is unquestionably better for having this rule in place. Without it, in theory, an at-bat could stretch on forever. In theory, any at-bat could already stretch on forever, but there would be nothing stopping a player from perfecting the skill of the two-strike foul bunt. Plate appearances might go 15, 20, 25, 70 pitches. Or strikeouts would be put off until everyone walked. Without the two-strike foul-bunt rule, baseball could very well collapse. At the very least, it would totally suck to watch.
I know about the two-strike foul-bunt rule. You know about the two-strike foul-bunt rule. It’s one of those rules baseball fans know before they turn 12. The question is, what does a two-strike foul bunt look like? That seems like a weird thing to ask, but after Wednesday’s game between the Brewers and Reds, this is suddenly in the news, and I want to know what all of you think.
| 2:00 |
: Hey there, let’s chat. Last Daily Prospect Notes of the year will be out later today and I’ll have Fall League roster stuff at some point, too. They’re exciting this year, as always.
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| 2:00 |
: who’s the biggest sleeper in the AZL that could become a big spec one day?
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| 2:02 |
: Depends on what kind of perspective you have. Reivaj Garcia isn’t a sleeper down here but he might be to you. I’ll say Wilbis Santiago. Old for AZL but really loose, quick hands.
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| 2:03 |
: Best prospect from this group? Neidert, Palumbo, Duran, Thorpe, Widener, Santillan, and poche
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| 2:03 |
: One of those guys is a 50 FV on The Board, the rest are not (yet)
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| 2:03 |
: DeShawn Knowles has comparable slash to Wander (albeit weaker ratios). What kind of upside are we looking at? Shane Victorino a decent comp?
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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 — Kyle Barraclough, Andrew Miller, and Dan Straily — on how they learned and/or developed their sliders.
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Kyle Barraclough, Miami Marlins
“I’ve thrown it since my sophomore year of high school. One day my coach grabbed me and said, ‘Hey, you want to throw a slider?’ He showed me a grip and was like, ‘Throw it like a fastball, and at the very end kind of just focus on staying down through your middle finger.’
“I couldn’t really throw a curveball, to be honest with you. I didn’t know much about pitching at that point — I played multiple sports until my senior year — and it just never came naturally to me. The slider kind of popped up out of nowhere. It was basically, ‘Let the grip do what it’s going to do,’ and that worked for me.
“When I got to college — I don’t know if it was from trying to be too fine with it, or from not being as aggressive through the ball — but it kind of got a little loopier. Then I got to pro ball and it kind of stayed that way.
