Effectively Wild Episode 1218: Commission and Omission

EWFI

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the dominant Justin Verlander and the Astros’ historic pitching pace, the still-struggling Dodgers, and the prospects of Blue Jays prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr., then talk to author Rob Neyer (16:28) about becoming the commissioner of the West Coast League, the future of baseball in Portland, and writing his forthcoming book, Power Ball. Later, they bring on ESPN MLB senior editor Christina Kahrl (32:03) to discuss when an MLB team will hire the league’s first female GM, the progress the game has and hasn’t made in embracing gender diversity, and her own experience being accepted by the baseball community.

Audio intro: The Mountain Goats, "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero"
Audio interstitial 1: The Rolling Stones, "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man"
Audio interstitial 2: Electric Light Orchestra, "Wild West Hero"
Audio outro: Mac DeMarco, "For the First Time"

Link to research about prospect promotion age
Link to West Coast League website
Link to the preorder page for Power Ball
Link to Christina’s espnW article
Link to Ben’s Sherri Nichols article

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Aaron Judge Is Hitting Better with an Even Worse Strike Zone

We know the Aaron Judge story. He was a prospect whose contact ability was questioned. Would his 80-grade power play in games? After working on a swing adjustment in the winter of 2016-17, however, he dramatically improved his contact rate, posting a remarkable 173 wRC+ last season while nearly winning the AL MVP award.

In the 21st century, there have been only 31 completed or ongoing seasons with a wRC+ better than Judge’s mark. And what’s remarkable is that one of those — though, just a partial season — is Judge’s 2018 campaign, in which he has a wRC+ of 178.

After making one of the most dramatic year-to-year improvements in major-league history, Judge has actually improved through the first quarter of this season, which is amazing in a different way. While making gains is one thing, consolidating them is another, with the wealth of scouting information available.

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Eric Longenhagen Prospects Chat: 5/17

2:03
Eric A Longenhagen: Hey, everyone. Finishing up a podcast. Will be here shortly

2:28
Eric A Longenhagen: Okay chat, I am here

2:28
Eric A Longenhagen: Sorry. Pod went long, because they’re fun to do with Carson and Kiley.

2:28
Eric A Longenhagen: Ok

2:28
Mike: Anything you’d change in the top 10 of the mock based on new info?

2:29
Eric A Longenhagen: Swaggerty to 9, McClanahan out of the top 10, Grayson Rodriguez anywhere from 10-TEX

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Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 5/17/18

12:01
Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon/morning and welcome to another edition of my weekly Thursday chats.

First, some housekeeping. In last week’s discussions of favorite sandwiches in NYC, I mourned the loss of the fried chicken sandwich from Van Horn Sandwich Shop, but I neglected to mention the loss of a sandwich that trumped even that: the Italian at Bierkraft, a Park Slope specialty beer shop that also did great subs. For meats, theirs had house roasted  ham, hot sopressata, proscuitto di Parma and something called petit jesu, which is a garlic-and-red-wine salami that looks like this https://stinkybklyn.com/shop/charcuterie/petit-jesu/. Also arugula, tomato, onion, roasted red pepper, balsamic and EVOO.

12:02
Jay Jaffe: That and a pint or bottle of any craft beer was a reliable go-for dinner or a picnic lunch back when my wife lived nearby. And per my complaint about not being able to get a decent Italian sandwich nearby — no, i’m not paying $18 f’ing dollars to the place with 150 different combos at Dekalb Market, edit your damn menu — it’s because none will ever measure up to that one.

(and yes, I do have a jpg of a menu for a place that went out of business three years ago. What’s weird about that?)

Accountability about sandwich remembrances is what I’m here for.

12:02
Marshall: Would you vote for Chase Utley for HoF?

12:04
Jay Jaffe: Hell yes. Hugely underrated player because he was not only an exceptional hitter but fielder and baserunner as well. Ninth in JAWS at 2B https://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/jaws_2B.shtml but I think he’s gonna get burned by the Rule of 2,000 as he needs 126 more hits and I’m just not sure he gets enough playing time to get there.

12:05
John Oleruds Helmet: Mr Jay! Enlighten thou with thy wisdom across the chativerse!! With the way front offices have devalued aging veterans and the prominence of players increasing their launch angle at the expense of contact, could a 3000 hit player become an impossibility in our lifetime like the 300 win pitcher has become??

12:08
Jay Jaffe: Well, we’re probably going to see Miguel Cabrera and Robinson Cano reach 3,000 within a few years, but after that, it could be awhile, as nobody active has more than ~2,100 and the guys that do (Markakis and Reyes) are 34 and 35. But I do think somebody like Altuve and of course Trout will have shots at it, if they stay healthy. We’ll have more of ’em than we do 300 win guys, for sure

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Daniel Mengden on Pitching to Red Sox Hitters

Daniel Mengden has bested the Red Sox twice this season. On April 22nd, the Oakland A’s right-hander was credited with a win after allowing the visiting Boston squad a lone run over 6.1 innings. This past Tuesday, he got another W while giving up a pair of runs, one of them unearned, over six equally effective innings at Fenway Park. In the combined outings, Mengden fanned eight, walked none, and surrendered just three extra-base bits, only one of which left the yard.

On Wednesday, I asked the mustachioed 25-year-old about his attack plan versus four of the Boston batters he’s faced. Here is what he had to say.

———

Mengden on Mitch Moreland and Andrew Benintendi: “Mitch Moreland and Andrew Benintendi… when I faced [the Red Sox] in Oakland, I had a changeup-heavy game against them. My changeup was working really well that day. Moreland got me twice yesterday, once on a changeup. He also got me on a 1-2 curveball that I should have bounced. I left it up and he flipped it down the [right field] line. He’s one of those guys who I feel sits offspeed, and you have to be tricky with some of those guys.

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Losing Pollock Isn’t the D-backs’ Only Problem

Although the Diamondbacks snapped a six-game losing streak on Tuesday night via a 2-1 come-from-behind victory over the Brewers at Chase Field, an 8-2 drubbing on Wednesday means they’ve now lost seven of eight and 10 of 13 to fall to 25-18. Particularly with the loss of A.J. Pollock to a fractured left thumb, the NL West leaders have begun to look quite vulnerable. Their offense has ground to a halt, eking out just 2.53 runs per game this month, they’ve got an increasing number of rotation concerns, and according to our Playoff Odds report, they’ve lost more ground over the past week than any other team.

The big news is the loss of Pollock, who rolled his glove hand awkwardly after coming up empty in a dive for a drive off the bat of Tyler Saladino on Monday night. Pollock suffered an avulsion fracture, meaning one that occurred where a tendon or ligament attaches to bone. Fortunately, he doesn’t need surgery. Adding insult to injury, however, Saladino was able to round the bases for an inside-the-park home run in what turned out to be a 7-2 defeat.

The shame of it is that Pollock — who, after a breakout 2015, missed most of 2016 with a fractured right elbow and a good chunk of 2017 with a groin strain — appeared to be on his way to an impressive season, hitting .293/.349/.620 with 11 homers, a 156 wRC+, and 2.3 WAR. As Craig Edwards noted just last week, the 30-year-old center fielder had benefited from a more aggressive approach and some tweaks to his swing, sacrificing some amount of contact for power. Both his slugging percentage and WAR lead the National League, while his home-run total ranks third, and his wRC+ sixth.

As Arizona Central’s Nick Piecoro pointed out, Pollock is the third Diamondback to miss significant time this season due to an injury sustained while diving for a ball, after right fielder Steven Souza Jr. and third baseman Jake Lamb. Souza suffered a right pectoral strain in late March — a spring-training game — and didn’t make his season debut until May 3. Lamb sprained the AC joint in his left shoulder while going for a foul ball on April 2 and then battled a bout of inflammation while rehabbing. He’s finally on track to return this weekend.

For as much as manager Torey Lovullo may have praised each of the injured players’ maximum effort, the losses of Souza (who posted a 120 wRC+ for Tampa Bay last year) and Lamb (111 for Arizona) have contributed to the Diamondbacks’ offensive struggles, and that of Pollock figures to as well. The team’s .220 batting average ranks dead last in the majors, their .300 on-base percentage just two points out of last, their .380 slugging percentage is 28th, and their 84 wRC+ 27th. Amid this month’s offensive drought, they’ve slipped to 13th in the league in scoring at 3.95 runs per game. Thanks to the improbably solid work of Daniel Descalso, the owner of a career 83 wRC+, the team’s third basemen have combined for a solid .242/.333/.425 (106 wRC+) line, but between Jarrod Dyson, Chris Owings, and Souza, who’s 6-for-39 since returning, the team’s right fielders have “hit” a combined .166/.236/.276 for a 37 wRC+. All three need to find their strokes, as Dyson and Owings figure to cover for Pollock’s absence. Whatever gains Owings (.202/.266/.316, 56 wRC+) and shortstop Nick Ahmed (.213/.275/.412, 82 wRC+) made early in the season via what Piecoro described as a team-wide philosophical shift to a hitting approach based upon pitch tunnels appear to have vanished.

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Auction Calculator In-Season Updates!

The FanGraphs Auction Calculator now calculates in-season values and values off Rest of Season projections.

Some Notes:

  • Rest of Season auction value calculations are available for Steamer, Depth Charts, ZiPS, and THE BAT projection systems.
  • Dollar values for Rest of Season projections are pro-rated for how many days are remaining in the season.
  • In-season auction value calculations are pro-rated for the number of days into the season.
  • Positional eligibility for in-season calculations is determined via positions played in 2018. Please adjust your position qualifications accordingly.

The Rarest Sight in Baseball

On May 12th, in the first inning of the Cubs’ game against the White Sox, Jon Lester did something a little bit unusual: he swung at a 3-1 pitch. Now, if Jon Lester were not a pitcher, that wouldn’t be all that unusual. Since 2011, non-pitchers (another word you might use for these people is “hitters”) have swung at 3-1 pitches about 56% of the time — 55.9% of the time, to be precise. But Jon Lester is a pitcher, and he still swung at a 3-1 pitch. And the thing is, over the same time period — that is, from 2011 (when our data starts) to present — pitchers faced with 3-1 counts have swung at the next pitch just 38.3% of the time. Of those swings, just one in five was at a pitch outside the zone, like the fastball on the outside edge at which Lester swung and missed. It’s just not something you see that often.

That’s because, if you’re a pitcher, swinging at a 3-1 pitch is usually not a very good idea. If you swing at such a pitch, you might get a hit (pitchers did hit 27 home runs last year, after all!), but you might also put the ball in play and record an out. If you don’t swing on 3-1, you definitely won’t record an out. You might still get a strike called against you, which would put you that much closer to recording an out, but you might also walk or get hit by the pitch — and a walk or hit by pitch, for a lot of pitchers at the plate, is a very good outcome. Last year, pitchers took 5,277 plate appearances. They recorded outs in 4,522 of those plate appearances (85.7%). I think it’s fair to say pitchers are looking for any means to reach base available to them. Swinging at 3-1 pitches is not a good way to do that. And so, two-thirds of the time, pitchers don’t.

Everything I’ve just said applies doubly to 3-0 counts. Even regular hitters don’t swing at those pitches all that often — just 8.2% of the time since 2011, in fact. With two strikes still available, it just doesn’t make any sense not to give the pitcher a chance to walk you, and so upwards of nine times out of 10, hitters will let the pitcher prove he can find the zone on a 3-0 count. And when it’s a pitcher at the plate, the odds of a swing on 3-0 are even smaller. Vanishingly small, in fact. Thanks to a database query performed by my colleague Sean Dolinar, I’m able to report to you now that a pitcher swing on a 3-0 count has happened only seven times since 2011, or about once a season. Seven times, out of 578 opportunities. About 1 in every 100 times. Almost never. And — here’s the fun thing about this story, I think — six of those seven swings were taken by just two men, and all seven came in the span of just three seasons. Let’s investigate the history of this strange baseball phenomenon together, shall we? Come with me on a journey back to May 20th, 2014.

Whoops! I jumped ahead in the story a little bit. That there on your screen, right above this text, is Madison Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants swinging at a 3-0 pitch in the fifth inning of a game against the Colorado Rockies. Now, Bumgarner can hit a little bit — at least as well as the worst big-league hitters can hit, that is. His career wRC+ is identical, for example, to Drew Butera’s. And he was behind in this game 1-0 in the fifth, with two runners on base and an out in the inning to spare. Perhaps he felt that his cause would be best served by a Very Large Home Run against Franklin Morales, who at this point in the game was pitching a gem (those of you who are familiar with the life and work of Franklin Morales may not be shocked to discover it did not end that way, though it wasn’t a terrible start, on the whole).

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Effectively Wild Episode 1217: The Sound of Strikes

EWFI

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the fallout from Robinson Cano‘s 80-game suspension, the league’s latest adjustment to Shohei Ohtani, Jason Castro‘s injury and Willians Astudillo’s opportunity, and the resurgent Jordan Lyles, then answer listener emails about the topsy-turvy National League, the evolution of orthodoxy about bullpens, the impact of Willson Contreras on Cubs pitchers, preemptive PRP treatments, a Yankees and Padres roster-swap, streakers helping pitchers warm up, detecting called strikes by sound, expected prospect value and Mike Sirotka vs. Michael Soroka, the correlation between double plays and team success, Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, a pitcher who watches the wave, a player who always makes outs on the bases, sabermetric bar debates and advanced milestone stats, and judging players by their eras’ standards, plus a Stat Blast about bunting success.

Audio intro: Joel Plaskett, "Deny, Deny, Deny"
Audio outro: Koufax, "Let Us Know"

Link to Ben’s post about Shohei Ohtani
Link to Jeff’s post about bullpen inconsistency
Link to prospect-value research

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Francisco Lindor Wants to Be Baseball’s Best Player

Articles about great players have this habit of turning into articles about Mike Trout. That’s because Mike Trout is the best player in the world. I’m not certain it’s even up for debate. It will be one day, and maybe that day will be soon, but Trout has proven so much, for so long. Players sometimes flirt with Trout’s level of performance. They’ll do it for a month, or even two or three. Then they fade away, while Trout remains. That’s his big secret: never slump. Never slump, and always be awesome.

I understand that, these days, there’s a conversation comparing Mike Trout and Mookie Betts. As you could guess, despite Betts’ start, I’ll still take Trout. I’m a Trout guy. But the Betts side does raise a valid point: Betts’ offensive bar doesn’t have to be so high, because he’s so incredibly valuable in the field. Betts is baseball’s best defensive right fielder. That gives him a leg up. He doesn’t have to hit like Trout to be more valuable than Trout. That much is correct.

That much would also apply to Francisco Lindor. Lindor is a wizard at a premium defensive position. He’s a threat when he gets on the bases. And now, at the plate, Lindor has leveled up. To be clear, I’m still a Trout guy. But Lindor, at least, is closing the gap.

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