CLEVELAND — Josh Hader wasn’t first.

Andrew Miller was the first elite relief arm deployed in multi-inning, non-save, high-leverage situations — at least in the current version of the game. Chris Devenski has carved out a similar role in Houston, too.

But Hader is a trailblazing figure in his own right.

What’s a little different about Hader is that, unlike so many elite relievers, he is not a failed major-league starter. Unlike Miller, for example, he assumed a relief role immediately upon reaching the majors. And unlike, say, a David Price or Chris Sale — that is, other powerful left-handed starting prospects who debuted as relievers — Hader isn’t merely biding his time until a spot opens in the rotation. Hader does not just fill a need in the Brewers’ bullpen. Instead, the club feels he has real value there. And rather than fight against the role or eye a return to starting, Hader has embraced his work.

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Managing in the majors is different than managing in the minors. In the opinion of Brian Snitker, it’s a lot different. And he should know: prior to taking the helm in Atlanta in May 2016, Snitker skippered Braves farm clubs in Rookie ball, Low-A, High-A, Double-A, and Triple-A. Interspersed with three stints as a big-league coach, he managed in the minor leagues for 20 seasons.

He’s proven to be more than capable at the highest level. Now in his second full season on the job, Snitker — a 62-year-old baseball lifer who has helped nurture countless careers — has his young Atlanta squad 11 games over .500 and in first place in the National League East.

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Brian Snitker: “Your daily norm isn’t close to the same in the major leagues as it is in the minor leagues. After I got this job, I remember telling my wife, ‘It’s like I can’t get there early enough to have any time for my myself. All I do is talk.’ I could probably change the hinges on the door once a week, because every time I turn around there’s either a player, a coach, a front-office person, medical staff, or a media person coming into my office and closing the door. You have a piece of everything that’s going on here. This is a lot more involved job than managing in the minor leagues ever was.

“I always loved having a relationship with the players in the minor leagues. I wanted to be invested in what they were doing. It’s a different relationship here, because these guys are grown men. They have families. In the minors, especially in the low minors, they’re getting their electricity cut off because they paid $300 for a pair of tennis shoes, or bought their girlfriend a dog, instead of paying their bills. You’re more of a father figure in the lower minor leagues.

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There is considerable teeth-gnashing going on around the game due to a lack of action on the field. Those criticisms are not unfounded. All things being equal, the game is better with more and not less action. A walk might be nearly as good as a hit when it comes to scoring runs, but it is considerably less exciting. A strikeout does have some excitement of its own, but on a large field that ranges out to 400 feet in most parks, concentrating much of the action to the first 60 feet has some drawbacks when it comes to demanding and retaining the attention of fans.

In any given confrontation, both the pitcher and batter exert considerable influence over the outcome of an at-bat. Because of that, it might seem reasonable to place equal blame on the hitters and pitchers for the increase in strikeouts. In an era defined by greater velocity and more frequent shifts, one argument goes, batters are failing to adjust. If they would just take the ball the other way, they might strike out less, get more hits, etc.

That might be true. It is also possible, however, that changing their approaches might lead hitters to produce less valuable outcomes or, worse, abandon the very strengths that allowed them to become major leaguers in the first place. That isn’t fair to hitters. What I’d like to posit here is a much simpler explanation for the rise in strikeouts — namely, that pitchers are too good.

Fastball velocity has increased at a steady rate, some of that due to the rise of relief innings around the league and some of it probably to dramatic improvements in training and development. That’s not really the point of this post, though. The point of this post is to discuss one particular cause of the increase in strikeouts that likely has little to do with launch angle or players trying to hit home runs, but rather the talent level of the pitchers and a change in philosophy.

Below is a scatter plot of MLB strikeout percentage and average fastball velocity.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the improving defense of Mike Trout and Matt Kemp, two minor observations prompted by amateur draft coverage, and a confusing quirk in the standings, then time travel back to a dramatically different era in bullpen usage by bringing in the most valuable reliever of the 1970s: Detroit Tigers great, groundbreaking “fireman,” and Canadian Baseball Hall of Famer John Hiller (19:21), who discusses his conversion from hockey to baseball, surviving multiple mid-career heart attacks, training and conditioning (or the lack thereof) among players of his era, learning new pitches, his phenomenal, record-setting 1973 season, the fireman mindset, starting vs. relieving, the evolution of reliever usage, the 1968 World Series, his memories of Lou Whitaker, Alan Trammell, and Jack Morris, and more.

Audio intro: You Am I, "Billy"
Audio interstitial: Frankie Cosmos, "Fireman"
Audio outro: The Fireman, "Sing the Changes"

Link to Ben’s article about Mike Trout
Link to Jeff’s article about Matt Kemp
Link to Joe Posnanski’s article about John Hiller
Link to Ben’s article about Josh Hader
Link to list of most valuable 1970s relievers
Link to EW interview with left-handed catcher

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In most cases, a player’s end-of-season statistics provide a pretty decent sense of how his campaign went. Are his numbers good? Then he was probably good for most of the year. Below average? Chances are, he was generally weak.

This isn’t the case with Michael Wacha, however. Since the beginning of the 2014 season, Wacha has put up at least 100 innings and a FIP below four every single year. The fraternity of pitchers who’ve done the same is pretty select. Chris Archer, Madison Bumgarner, Carlos Carrasco, Jacob deGrom, Gio Gonzalez, Clayton Kershaw, Dallas Keuchel, Corey Kluber, Jose Quintana, Chris Sale, Danny Salazar,  Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Justin Verlander are the only others ones to do it. The Cardinals right-hander has joined that group, however, not by means of consistently strong performances, but rather due to a combination of brilliant periods offset by decidedly poor ones.

After taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning on Sunday, Wacha appears to be in the midst of a good stretch currently. Wacha gained notoriety in 2013 when he finished off September with five good starts followed by an excellent run in the postseason before the Boston Red Sox got to him in the World Series. Since then, Wacha has had stretches of being a very good pitcher, but inconsistency and injuries have prevented Wacha from becoming the ace many hoped he would be after his late-season success in his first campaign. The chart below depicts Wacha’s 10-game rolling FIP since the beginning of 2014.

If there’s a pattern, it is that, at some point in every season, Wacha pitches really well for a time before things fall apart and he ends the season poorly. Wacha suffered a stress reaction in his scapula back in 2014, and has worked hard to strengthen his shoulder over the years, but he hasn’t yet found a solution to make it through the season unscathed. Last year was arguably Wacha’s best as a pro, but before a strong September, he struggled in August with a 5.24 FIP and a 6.04 ERA. While it is probably pretty easy to chalk up Wacha’s struggles to injury, breaking down his successes might be more useful in assessing his current talent level.

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Although the Nationals just lost three out of four to the Braves and are still running in second place behind Atlanta, things have generally been going Washington’s way lately. Since starting the year 11-16, they’ve gone an NL-best 22-9 (.710) with the majors’ third-best Pythagorean winning percentage (.685) in that span. They’ve dealt with a slew of injuries, but Anthony Rendon is back, 19-year-old Juan Soto has made an impressive splash, the Matt Adams/Mark Reynolds tandem has significantly outproduced the absent Ryan Zimmerman, and both Daniel Murphy and Adam Eaton could rejoin the lineup soon.

Yet Bryce Harper remains an enigma — a productive enigma, to be fair. The 25-year-old right fielder leads the NL with 18 homers. Despite a torrid start to his 2018 season, however — he hit eight homers in his first 17 games — he’s just 11th in the league in wRC+ (134, on .232/.371/.527 hitting), sixth in slugging percentage, 16th in on-base percentage, and tied for 27th in WAR (1.4). Not thrilling, but nice — after all, Harper is a career .281/.385/.516 (141 wRC+) hitter who last year batted .319/.413/.595 (156 WRC+). We all know that he’s capable of more than what he’s shown this year. Hundreds of millions of dollars, in the form of his next contract, are riding on it.

The direction of Harper’s trend this year is unmistakable:

Harper went from hitting .247/.458/.528 (158 wRC+) in April to hitting .223/.289/.563 (125 wRC+) in May, but those monthly splits conceal a more drastic falloff, albeit one that relies upon selective endpoints, which are displayed here for the purposes of rubbernecking only:

Woof. Lately, Harper’s funk is even deeper. Over his past 10 starts (plus one pinch-hitting appearance), he’s hitting .209/.271/.442 with four walks and 21 strikeouts in 48 plate appearances.

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When I wrote about Max Muncy, I pointed out how strange a season it’s been for the Dodgers. Many of the best players have been hurt, or they’ve underperformed. Meanwhile, they’ve been supported by surprises like Muncy, Ross Stripling, and Matt Kemp. Muncy has been one of the team’s better hitters. Stripling has been the team’s most valuable pitcher. And Kemp has been the team’s most valuable overall player. I mean that in terms of WAR — Kemp has the highest figure on the club. At +1.8, he’s already done more than he did in any of the previous three years.

I skipped right by that when I was writing about Muncy, because I was writing about Muncy. But it’s just as big a deal. Remember, nobody wanted Kemp. Even the Dodgers didn’t want Kemp. It appeared he’d declined into being a valueless player. When he was traded, he wasn’t traded because of his skills; he was traded because of his contract. Now we’re more than two months into 2018, and Kemp’s a major reason why the Dodgers are even alive. His present WAR alone might be the most astonishing early statistic.

I want to drill a little deeper. Kemp’s WAR is surprising. One component of his WAR is even more surprising.

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Brandon Nimmo’s promise as a hitter had been addressed in these pages during the offseason, so it’s not surprising that, when Nimmo was demoted to Triple-A following a strong start to his 2018 campaign, this author argued on behalf of a quick return to the majors.

The decision had little to do with his talents, of course. Rather, it was due mostly to the outfield logjam created by the Mets after reuniting with Jay Bruce over the winter. Nimmo was quickly freed from Las Vegas in mid-April, however, returning just days after being demoted as the Mets moved Jacob Rhame to the DL.

Since he’s returned, all he’s done is lead all NL batters in wRC+ (173), ranking third by that measure among all major leaguers with at least 100 plate appearances .

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