One of the more interesting deals of the most recent offseason was the Cubs’ three-year, $38 million pact with former Rockies swingman Tyler Chatwood. On the one hand, Chatwood had some virtues as a pitcher. On the other, in an offseason during which nearly every free agent received less than expected, Chatwood got $8 million more than Dave Cameron projected in his examination of the 2017-18 class.

Back in December, Eno Sarris wrote for this site that Chatwood, despite his apparent flaws, might be an adjustment or two away from a Rich Hill-type breakout.

You’ve heard of “spin-rate guys,” right? Well, Chatwood is absolutely a spin-rate guy. What’s interesting, though, is that he hasn’t converted that high spin into plus movement. Why? Well, it might have something to do with useful spin. Over time, Chatwood has dropped his arm slot to get more movement on his sinker and more ground balls, probably because he pitched in Coors. That robs his fastball of ride, though, and his curveball of downward movement.

An easy fix might be to just throw the curveball more. He only threw it 11% of the time in 2017. It got over 70% ground balls and above-average whiffs. Batters had a .164 slugging percentage against it last year. And that fits with the spin and movement on the pitch.

With about a quarter of the season in the books, now seems like a good time to check whether that adjustment has come and how the Cubs have fared on their investment.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about baffling flamethrower Jordan Hicks, Rich Hill‘s latest blister problem, the Orioles’ unlikely 13-hit, zero-run game, Albert Pujols‘ prospects, Ryan Zimmerman’s slow spring training and slower start, and more. Then they bring on writer Joe Sheehan (23:23) to discuss the Rays’ “starting Sergio Romo” strategy, whether it will catch on with other teams, the evolution of in-game management, the optimization of bunting, batting orders, and bullpens, why analysis is no longer the province of small-market teams, whether smarter baseball is more boring baseball (and if so, who’s to blame), and how the evolution of baseball has changed baseball writing.

Audio intro: Smash Mouth, "105"
Audio interstitial: Teenage Fanclub, "The First Sight"
Audio outro: Superchunk, "Smarter Hearts"

Link to Jeff’s Jordan Hicks post
Link to Bryan Grosnick’s “Opener” post
Link to DRaysBay “Opener” analysis
Link to Joe Sheehan newsletter

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I’m going to show you two clips, featuring right-handed rookie relievers around their top fastball speeds. One of these relievers has struck out almost a third of the batters he’s faced. That’s good! It’s not exactly Josh Hader good, but then, nobody is. Hader is on another level. Anyway, the other one of these relievers hasn’t struck out even a tenth of the batters he’s faced. Absent any other information, that’s bad! It should at least make success very difficult to achieve. I know I’ve kind of ruined it with the headline, but I don’t care, we’re still doing this. I’m the one in control of how this goes.

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Necessity is said to be the primary motivator behind innovation. And no franchise is faced with a more difficult environment in which to compete, is confronted by a greater need for innovation, than the Tampa Bay Rays.

In possession of either the worst or second-worst stadium situation in the majors, with small-market revenues, the Rays also share a division with coastal elites like the Yankees (+76) and Red Sox (+75), who rank second and third in the majors in run differential, respectively, behind only the Astros (+98).

Because of this, the Rays have been more willing to experiment than just about every other club over the last 15 years. They brought defensive shifts to the American League, signed Evan Longoria to a club-friendly deal six days after he debuted in the majors, and have limited starting pitchers to two trips through the order more aggressively than any other club. This spring, they planned to employ a four-man rotation.

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Yu Darvish has gotten off to a rocky start with the Cubs, and for the better part of 23 excruciating minutes on Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati, the 31-year-old righty’s struggles appeared to be more of the same. Facing the NL’s worst team, and having failed to last five innings in either of his two previous starts this month, Darvish needed 39 pitches to escape the first inning. Fortunately for the Cubs, he avoided a meltdown and more or less dominated over his final five innings, notching his first win as a Cub and perhaps turning a corner.

Darvish entered the game sporting a 5.56 ERA and 5.12 FIP in his seven previous starts with Chicago, totaling just 33 innings, fewer than five per turn. He had been chased with one out in the fifth inning in his March 31 debut against the Marlins and was pulled from the fifth in three of his next five starts, the exceptions being a pair of six-inning, one-run outings against the Brewers. On May 7, the day before he was to make his first start following a three-homer, six-run outing against the Rockies — a start that drew boos from the Wrigley Field crowd — the Cubs placed him on the disabled list with parainfluenza virus.

The timing of Darvish’s return drew scrutiny from the hot-take-osphere, as manager Joe Maddon could have started him against the Braves at home on May 14, a makeup game for an earlier rainout, but instead opted to give him “one extra day” and start him against the same opponent in Atlanta a day later. Maddon dismissed the notion that the team had a potentially hostile Wrigley Field crowd in mind, but Darvish’s departure after four relatively sharp innings and only 61 pitches added fuel to the fire, at least until the manager revealed that the pitcher departed due to a calf cramp. Nonetheless, the perception of Darvish as mentally soft is in danger of taking root in Chicago, bad news for a pitcher who’s just one-quarter of the way through the first season of a six-year, $126 million deal, even one who owns the kind of career numbers — a 3.50 ERA, 3.38 FIP, 11.0 strikeouts per nine — that testify to his talent and outstanding stuff.

So it felt like a lot was riding on Sunday’s start against the Reds, and it didn’t go well — not to begin, at least. A six-pitch walk to leadoff hitter Alex Blandino was followed by a six-pitch foul out to catcher by Eugenio Suarez and then a single by Joey Votto on the fifth pitch. Seven pitches later, Darvish hit Scooter Gennett in the left foot with a 91 mph cutter, loading the bases. While he tidily ended a four-pitch encounter with Adam Duvall via a strikeout on a high 95 mph fastball, the Reds got on the board when Scott Schebler hit a hot grounder — with an exit velocity of 100 mph, the fastest he allowed all day — to Javier Baez on Darvish’s seventh pitch, a ball that the shortstop could only knock down. Infield single. After a visit from pitching coach Jim Hickey, with the bases still loaded, Darvish managed to put the inning to to rest by inducing Tucker Barnhart to foul out to third baseman Ian Happ, limiting the damage to one run.

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Since 1990 (in which year, Rich Garces represented the season’s only teenage debutante), only 14 hitters have debuted in the big leagues shy of age 20. With his appearance pinch-hit appearance on Sunday for the Nationals, Juan Soto just did it less minor-league time than nearly all of them. Soto’s 2017 season was buried under injuries (a fractured ankle, a broken hamate bone that required surgery, a hamstring issue), which limited him to just 32 games. When he stepped into the batter’s box this weekend, he did so having played just 122 minor-league games before his debut, the fewest for a teenage hitter since Alex Rodriguez debuted as an 18-year-old in 1994 after just 114 games.

Edgar Renteria was pushed to the Midwest League as a 16-year-old and, by the time he was in the majors, had three times as many games under his belt than Soto. Justin Upton was drafted out of high school in 2005 and held out until January. (I guess there’s one good thing about the new CBA.) Then he tore through the minors and debuted in August of 2007 after seeing action in about 200 games. Trout signed quickly after he was drafted and played in the AZL that summer, then split his first full pro season at Low- and High-A, after which he was already at 175 games, and he needed 75 more and a Peter Bourjos injury the following year to debut.

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Minnesota Twins. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from our own (both Eric Longenhagen’s and Kiley McDaniel’s) observations. For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this.

All the numbered prospects here also appear on THE BOARD, a new feature at the site that offers sortable scouting information for every organization. Click here to visit THE BOARD.

55 FV Prospects

Lewis was one of the best players on the summer showcase circuit in 2016, showing a rare combo of hit, power, and speed tools, though it was unclear if he fit better in the infield or center field. He had an up-and-down spring for his high school, with contact concerns caused by some mechanical changes, but he finished strong and the raw tools were still there, helping him go No. 1 overall in a year without a clear-cut top prospect.

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If you’ve spent any time observing some of the nerdier battles over baseball statistics in the last decade or two, you’re probably familiar with the arguments made for and against certain metrics. Beginning with the relatively simple matter of batting average versus on-base percentage, these debates tend generally to take the same shape. And generally, one recurring blind spot of such debates is that they tend to dwell on what certain statistics don’t do instead of best identifying what they do do.*

*Author’s note: /Nailed It

The last few years has seen the release, by MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), of a flurry of new data and statistics, generally referred to as “Statcast data.” We’ve also seen advances in the measurement of catcher-framing by the people at Baseball Prospectus, who have also continued making improvements in the evaluation of pitchers in the form of Deserved Run Average (DRA). When new data and metrics emerge, there is inevitably a period of uncertainty that follows. What does this stat mean? What’s the best way to use this data set? Equally inevitable is the misapplication of new statistics. That aspect of potential statistical innovation is not really new.

Today, what is new is xwOBA — and, in part due to the wide proliferation of Statcast data by means of telecasts and MLB itself, more fans are finding and using stats like xwOBA than might have been in previous generations. As with other new metrics, we are still attempting to identify how xwOBA might best be used.

One such study into the potential utility of xwOBA was recently published by Jonathan Judge at Baseball Prospectus. The study is a good one, with Judge focusing on xwOBA against pitchers. While not ultimately his point, Judge does, along the way, object to the “x” in xwOBA, as he feels that “expected” implies predictive power. While I have always interpreted the “expected” to mean “what might have been expected to happen given neutral park and defense” — that is, without assuming a predictive measure — it does appear that reasonable people can disagree on that interpretation.

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