With over 3,000 hits and his status as one of the greatest defensive third basemen in history, Adrian Beltre is already a lock for Cooperstown. On Thursday, he claimed a particularly cool slice of history. With his double off A’s starter Daniel Mengden, he collected hit number 3,054, surpassing Hall of Famer Rod Carew, whom he had tied on Tuesday night, for the most hits of any player born in Latin America.

Here’s the record-setting hit, whose significance was acknowledged by the Rangers’ broadcasters a few moments after the clip:

With this hit Adrian Beltre passes Rod Carew as the @MLB career hit leader for Latin-born players. Congratulations! pic.twitter.com/XlISb2HhG1

— Bally Sports Southwest (@BallySportsSW) April 5, 2018

At some point later this season, Beltre will likely overtake Ichiro Suzuki, now a 44-year-old reserve, as the all-time leader in hits for a player born outside of the United States:

Note that I’ve included Puerto Rico-born players here. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated US territory, and its citizens are US citizens, but the Caribbean island is also considered part of Latin America, and its ballplayers have long been recognized and celebrated within that context, particularly during and after the career of the iconic Clemente.

Looking at the above list, it’s remarkable that for all of the talented Latin American players that have starred in the game over the past several decades, only four have reached 3,000 hits (out of 24 such players since World War II), with Pujols poised to become the fifth; none has advanced much further than that. Clemente ranked 11th on the all-time hit list at the time of his December 31, 1972 death, but the total number of players above him has more than doubled in the 45 years since. He was 16th at the end of 1985, Carew’s final year, while Carew himself was 13th. Beltre, who turns 39 on April 7, is still playing at a consistently high enough level to think beyond 2018. Assuming he can total 200 hits over this season and next — a conservative assumption given that he had 106 in just 94 games last year — he’d climb to 14th all time, with 3,248, seven shy of Eddie Murray at number 13, and 35 shy of Willie Mays at number 12. He’d need a total of 3,320 to crack the all-time top 10.

(All of these rankings rely upon the inclusion of Cap Anson’s National Association stats from 1871-75 towards his career total of 3,435, as recognized by Retrosheet and Baseball-Reference. Elias Bureau and Major League Baseball, which do not recognize NA stats, credit him with 3,011 hits.)

Beltre is also bearing down on another very cool distinction within this group. His 84.2 WAR is the second-highest total of any player born outside of the US, trailing only Pujols, who’s at 89.1 but moving backwards (-2.1 since the start of 2017). Beltre will probably need at least another season to close the gap, but if he does, the Hall of Fame will have to break out a very narrow typeface for his plaque in order to fit all of his accomplishments.

I know the Dodgers don’t have Justin Turner right now, and I know Justin Turner is one of the best pure hitters in baseball. As such, the Dodgers are playing at less than 100%, but that still doesn’t make them bad. It certainly shouldn’t make them as bad as Patrick Corbin made them look on Wednesday. Corbin was good for 7.1 scoreless innings, and he racked up a career-high 12 strikeouts. He also allowed only one hit, a blooper to shallow right field. Corbin actually managed to out-hit the Dodgers all by himself on the evening, knocking a single and a double. Corbin performed as well as he ever has, and the Diamondbacks stretched their early lead over the Dodgers to 3.5 games. Everything counts, no matter how early it is in the season.

It should come as no surprise that, on a day Corbin proved nearly unhittable, he made great use of his best pitch. Of Corbin’s 12 strikeouts, he picked up a career-high ten of them with his slider. Corbin has always had a terrific slider — it’s the pitch that’s allowed him to be a big-leaguer. But he might only now be fully embracing it. The Dodgers just saw the new Patrick Corbin, and he’s a pitcher who’s decided to pitch to his strengths.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometime late in the afternoon of March 11, word broke on Twitter that the Phillies were “moving close” to a deal with then-free agent Jake Arrieta. In the hours that followed, several national and local writers confirmed that the two sides had reached a verbal agreement on a complex multi-year contract, though all involved cautioned that no deal was official yet.

And indeed it wasn’t. Before any major- or minor-league transaction can become officially official—before, indeed, a player can appear on a team’s roster or begin receiving paychecks from said team for their services—team, league, and (mostly in the case of free agent signings) agency officials have to work together to confirm each and every minute detail of the transaction in baseball’s system of record: the Electronic Baseball Information System (eBIS).

The gap between when verbal agreement is reached and when a deal is finalized in eBIS is most familiar to us as the interstitial period that comes between word of a big deal breaking in public and the team making that deal official. But the same process applies to thousands of transactions every year, big and small, and when we speak of a deal becoming Official—or, for that matter, a player being placed on waivers or reassigned to the minor leagues or drafted—what we really mean is that that transaction has been recorded and approved in eBIS.

It’s possible that the details of how this system works are only interesting to me, A Known Process Nerd. But on the off chance that might also be interesting to you, I spent some time talking about how the system works with Morgan Sword, the league’s Senior Vice President for League Economics & Operations, and Ned Rice, one of three Assistant General Managers for the Phillies, and the man mostly responsible for that team’s eBIS interactions (you may also recognize him as one of the men who greeted Arrieta’s plane on the tarmac in Florida on the evening of March 13th—the two men have known each other since their time in Baltimore).

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

This is Shakeia Taylor’s first piece as part of her April Residency at FanGraphs. Shakeia is an avid baseball fan and baseball history enthusiast. Her main interests include the Negro Leagues and women in baseball. She has written for The Hardball Times and Complex. She hosts an annual charity bartending fundraiser for Jackie Robinson Day, all of tips and raffle proceeds of which are donated to the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Though not from Baltimore, she’s still an Elite Giant. Shakeia can also be found on Twitter (@curlyfro). She’ll be contributing here this month.

Sports, for all their faults, are important for many. They’re important in a way we sometimes don’t talk about. One of my friends recently said to me, “Playing baseball as a kid probably saved my life.” It’s been on my mind ever since he said it, because I understand the sentiment. There are kids in many cities and towns across America who would say the same.

My friend, who grew up in a tough urban neighborhood, said baseball saved his life because it gave him something to do. It gave him something to focus on; it kept him off the street. Those statements hold true for many other kids.

I had complained about the lack of diversity in baseball for a long time. I had talked about how people of color and women and girls need better representation in the sport, and I’d done so until I reached a point of exhaustion. Then one day, I decided I would stop talking and try to do something about it.

It started with a Google search for the Little League regional office for my local area. Then came an email to that office with one request:

Hi there, I am interested in helping a Chicago Little League team who may be in need of additional support in the way of equipment and monetary donations. I am hoping you can put me in touch with a coach or two in the city who could use the assistance. I’m happy to answer any and all questions. Thank you in advance!”

My email was answered by Carlton Jones.

Jones is the district administrator for the North and West parts of Chicago, as well as parts of the South side. Jones also serves as the liaison between the leagues, the Central Region Little League HQ, and the International Headquarters in Williamsport. He has been involved with Little League since 2010, but he has served as a coach, manager, or board member in youth baseball since 2003.

“I wanted children from the North Side of Chicago to have the opportunity to enjoy little league baseball and compete in the LLWS tournament, which has five phases, the last two of which are televised.”

Jones’ district, Illinois Little League District 12, or IL-12, has a large geographical footprint. Literally every neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago is serviced. For the West Side, it’s everything north of Cermak. On the South Side, it includes Englewood, Bronzeville, the South Loop, Oakwood, Kenwood, and Morgan Park.

When asked about the current state of Chicago Little League, Jones tells me that “Chicago Little League is a Special Needs league that provides baseball opportunities for players 4-18 and 19-25 that would not be able to play without special accommodations. It was part of Horner Park North-West Little League until it became large enough to be its own league.”

According to a 2015 Wall Street Journal article, 9 million kids between the ages of seven and 17 played baseball in the United States in 2002, but by 2013, that figure had dropped by more than 41%. With participation on the decline, teams and leagues have been forced to either shut down or merge, further constricting access for poorer families and making the sport whiter and more affluent. Baseball is expensive, and that expense is having an adverse effect on the participation of Black and Latino Americans. You need equipment and uniforms. You need fees. You need money for transportation. Teams in economically disadvantaged areas are often forced to apply for grants and fundraise heavily in order to support kids who want to play.

“Our Little Leagues cost anywhere from $25-$50 for basic programming up to $300 for teams that play over a 30-game season,” Carlton explained. “Your typical travel team will cost a minimum of $800, although $1,500 is closer to reality. Include private lessons and special overnight tournaments, and travel ball for a 12-and-under will easily cost in the $3,000-$5,000 range.”

The burden of that expense contributes to the ethnic and racial disparity we see in professional baseball today. The 2017 Racial and Gender Report Card for Major League Baseball reveals the game to be overwhelmingly white. Among the players present on last season’s Opening Day active rosters, 31.9% were Latino and just 7.7% were African-American or African-Canadian. And while those levels are consistent with 201 6– and while the overall participation of non-white players is at an all-time high — they represent a marked drop from the peak of African-American participation in the sport in the mid-1970s, when approximately 27% of players were African-American.

The disparity extends to those who watch the game. As of 2013, 83% of MLB television viewers were white; just 9% were Black. Of that same group, 50% were 50 years or older. Seeing oneself reflected in the game isn’t the only reason people engage with baseball, but it creates an important, lasting link to the sport. And with the current viewing audience increasingly composed of a white and aging demographic, it is vital to the future health of the sport that kids of color and girls develop an interest the game and are able to sustain that interest.

MLB recognizes this and in 2017, along with USA Baseball, established the Dream Series. The objective of the Dream Series is not only to prepare young players for a future in baseball, but to increase diversity across the sport, particularly among pitchers and catchers. The 2017 season saw baseball’s 30 organizations opening the season with just 54 African-American pitchers and five African-American catchers in the minors. The multi-day event coincides with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, and players receive presentations on entering baseball out of high school and through college. Registration is free.

In recent years, the Dream Series has featured top prospects like Hunter Greene, who was taken second overall by the Reds in last year’s amateur draft. It is an important step, but it can’t serve everyone. Many of the players who are invited are well past Little League. MLB has endeavored to support youth baseball and softball in cities with its RBI Program (Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities), but the need for programming targeted at communities of color persists, especially in neighborhoods like those served by Jones’ district.

After I reached out, Jones arranged a meeting with Vanessa Munoz of the Horner Park Thundercats and Luis Medina of Amundsen Park Little League, two administrators for teams that could use a lot of help. For the 2018 season, Horner Park has about 50 softball players in the 12-and-under group, and over 200 players in the high school aged group. For the Amundsen Park team, Jones and Medina are estimating 100-150 players. Both leagues are comprised primarily of Black and Latinx children.

For the last eight weeks, I have shared the stories of these two teams on Facebook and Twitter. Each needs to raise at least $1,000 to cover their charter and insurance fees. Translating that cost into equipment is difficult, as funding to pay for fees, as well as field equipment is needed. Initially, the response was one of excitement, but that hasn’t translated into significant donations. Money has been coming in slowly, but with the season fast approaching, both teams could use an influx of cash. To make the fundraising easier for those interested in donating, Vanessa and Luis have been using the cash app. The process has underscored the challenges these teams and communities face: scattered individual efforts and determined administrators like Carlton Jones, trying to stretch resources to serve as many as children as possible.

Despite the lack of funding, Jones remains hopeful for the future of Little League baseball in Chicago. “Little League is a leadership program that uses the vehicle of baseball and softball to mold the children of today into the future leaders of tomorrow,” he says. “The pride of wearing the LL Patch, representing your park during the tourney season, and being able to play with your friends means the world to these children, as the sport is their life and refuge during the summer. For the parents and community contributing to neighborhood and having something to bond together with is tremendous. One day, one of these leagues will go far in the tournament and make the city proud.”

I hope he is right, and that these teams can find the support they need to flourish. I think about my friend, whose life was perhaps saved by a game. I think about what it means for young kids of color to be able to look up at the majors and see faces that look like theirs. I wonder how long they’ll sustain that connection if the current demographic trends continue. I wonder how long baseball can sustain itself as costs mount, and the audience at home ages. I hope others will try to get more diversity on the field. The health of baseball in the US might depend on it, and a few young lives, too.

Bryce Harper struck out twice yesterday. It was notable not because a two strikeout game is an unusual feat for Harper–he’s struck out twice in a game 137 times. What made yesterday’s game notable was that Harper did not strike out at all in his first five games. In those first five games, Harper also hit four home runs. The last player to hit four home runs in his team’s first five games without striking out was Barry Bonds in 2003. Bonds actually hit five homers, but other than Bonds, nobody else has done what Harper just did in the last 30 seasons. It’s safe to say, he’s locked in.

After 29 plate appearances, Harper has four homers, two singles, nine walks, and 14 outs, with his two from yesterday coming via the strikeout. In the very early going, Harper’s wRC+ is 247, and that’s with a BABIP of just .143. That’s really good, although not out of the ordinary given that Harper put up a 197 wRC+ over the course of the 2015 season. So far, Harper has done a good job swinging at strikes and not swinging at balls. For his career, Harper has swung at 31% of pitches outside the zone and 73% of pitches in the zone. This year, Harper is chasing just 20% of pitches outside the zone, and when he gets a strike, he’s ripping it 82% of the time.

The list below is illustrative of what has happened so far. It likely has little bearing on what will happen in the future, but it shows how Harper’s plate discipline compares to the rest of baseball this season. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s fair to say that the Yankees’ 2018 home opener didn’t go quite as planned. New York City’s heaviest April snowfall since 1982 forced the postponement of Monday’s scheduled 1 pm game against the Rays, and it was made up on Tuesday afternoon under soggy, frigid conditions. In his first official game in pinstripes, Giancarlo Stanton recorded a platinum sombrero — 0-for-5 with five strikeouts — and was booed by moronic ingrates, and the vaunted Yankees bullpen blew a three-run lead. Then Didi Gregorius, who had already hit a three-run homer that created the short-lived lead, broke the game open with his second three-run blast, and later tacked on a two-run single that turned the game to an 11-4 laugher. It was an impressive, two-curtain call day for a player who often flies beneath the radar amid the Bronx Bombers’ bigger names.

Not that anyone should worry about Stanton (who launched a 458-foot homer in his first plate appearance on Wednesday), but Gregorius can relate. Tasked with replacing the iconic, Cooperstown-bound Derek Jeter as the Yankees’ shortstop, he was burdened with the weight of massive expectations and heard the Bronx boo birds and chants of “Der-ek Je-ter!” frequently in early 2015. Gradually, Gregorius has settled into the job, to the point that he’s almost overlooked, whether the point of comparison is the Yankees’ modern-day Murderer’s Row (with Aaron Judge, Gary Sanchez and now Stanton), a work-in-progress infield brimming with young talent and versatility, or an incredible shortstop cohort featuring Carlos Correa, Francisco Lindor, Corey Seager, Xander Bogaerts, Trea Turner and now Manny Machado, all in their age-25 seasons or younger.

The 28-year-old Gregorius doesn’t quite belong at their level, but over the past three seasons, he’s a solid seventh in WAR at the position, including a career-high 3.9 WAR in 2017 (also seventh):

By WAR, Gregorius has been the most valuable Yankees position player in that span, though to be fair, that’s only because of his head start on Judge and Sanchez, who arrived for good in late 2016.

Born in Amsterdam in 1990, the grandson of Juan Gregorius, a star hurler in Curaçao in the 1950s and the son of Honkbal Hoofdklasse pitcher Johannes (Didi) Gregorius Sr. of the Amsterdam Pirates, Mariekson Julius Gregorius was raised in Curaçao from age 5, and signed by the Reds as an amateur free agent in 2007. He debuted in the majors in September 2012, but with his position blocked by Zack Cozart, he was dealt to the Diamondbacks in December of that year as part of a three-way, nine-player blockbuster involving Cleveland-bound Trevor Bauer and Cincinnati-bound Shin-Soo Choo. At the time, Diamondbacks general manager Kevin Towers audaciously compared Gregorius to the man he would eventually replace:

When I saw him, he reminded me of a young Derek Jeter. I was fortunate enough to see Jeter when he was in high school in Michigan. He’s got that type of range, he’s got speed, more of a line-drive-type hitter, and I think he’s got the type of approach at the plate and separation to where I think there’s going to be power there as well.”

After cracking the Baseball America Top 100 Prospects list in the spring of 2013, Gregorius scuffled over the course of two seasons as the Diamondbacks’ regular shortstop, hitting a combined .241/.314/.368 for an 85 wRC+ with a meager 1.8 WAR. He even spent two months back in Triple A early in 2014. After Towers was fired in September 2014, it was hardly a coincidence that Yankees GM Brian Cashman, under whom Towers had worked as a special assignment scout between GM stints in San Diego and Arizona, dealt for Gregorius in another three-team deal in December of that year.

Despite the impossible task of filling Jeter’s shoes in a figurative sense, Gregorius quickly illustrated that he could cover far more ground at shortstop than the aging superstar, whose glovework was generally notoriously overrated. While he’s had his own ups and downs in his three seasons at the position, he’s been a massive improvement upon the Captain and fill-ins such as Eduardo Nunez and Jayson Nix, who got the bulk of the work during Jeter’s injury-shortened 2013 season:

Over the last four years of the Jeter era, Yankees shortstops (all of ’em) averaged a godawful -19 DRS and -15 UZR. Over the first three years of the Gregorius era, those averages have been boosted to -3 DRS and +3 UZR. I’ve dispensed with the rounding here, but that’s a 17- or 18-run per year improvement, or nearly two wins per year. Excluding 2013, Jeter averaged 1.6 WAR over his final three full seasons, with Gregorius doubling that average during his tenure.

Indeed, though he’ll never be the on-base machine that even the latter-day Jeter was prior to his October 2012 broken ankle, Gregorius has advanced markedly as a hitter during his pinstriped tenure, from an 89 wRC+ in 2015 to 98 the next year and 107 last year. The power that Towers envisioned has indeed emerged, as his ISOs have increased from .105 to .171 to .191 in those three years, with his homer totals climbing from nine to 20 to 25. And no, that’s not just Yankee Stadium at work; while 29 of his 54 homers during that span came at home, he’s got an 86 wRC+ there (.251/.292/.415) compared to 110 on the road (.300/.335/.448). That split is driven by groundball and flyball rates that are basically reversed (38%/42% at home, 42%/37% away), a 51-point BABIP gap (.265 versus .316) and a substantial strikeout split (15.4% versus 11.8%).

Gregorius’s game has its dings, most notably an anemic walk rate (4.4% from 2015-17, 13th-lowest among the 232 hitters with at least 1,000 PA) borne of a tendency to chase (39.1% O-Zone rate, also 13th) en route to a .313 on-base percentage (56th lowest in that same set). Even so, the overall package — which includes a few extra runs per year on the bases — has developed into such a solid one that he’s become the cornerstone of a Yankees’ infield that’s otherwise unsettled. Heading into 2017, Gleyber Torres, Jorge Mateo and Tyler Wade all ranked among the team’s top prospects after spending a substantial portion of 2016 playing shortstop for either their High A or Double A affiliates. Mateo is now an Oakland Athletic via last July’s Sonny Gray trade, Wade is a utilityman whom Cashman envisions as the team’s Ben Zobrist, and Torres is the heir apparent at second base.

Gregorius, in his first year of arbitration eligibility, is making $8.25 million and has two more years under club control. And while he may not get the attention of Judge, Sanchez or Stanton, he’s probably not going anywhere anytime soon — except, perhaps, out of Jeter’s shadow, one step and one season at a time.

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Shohei Ohtani’s hot hitting start, revisit the subject of Joey Gallo bunting against the four-man outfield, and critique a retracted Trevor Rosenthal report, then answer listener emails about Bondsian starts to seasons, Tommy Pham’s prophfanity, how data-driven players may impact projections, Seth Lugo’s breakout potential, short-term tanking vs. long-term tanking, new counting-stat thresholds, a version of Giancarlo Stanton who always swings for the fences, a harebrained scheme to break the career hits record, a Mike Trout pitching hypothetical, a Triple-A/MLB role reversal, a star player out for vengeance, and more, plus a Stat Blast about the balls hit hardest by pitchers.

Audio intro: Spoon, "First Caress"
Audio outro: Roger Daltrey, "A Second Out"

Link to Russell Carleton’s article about Joey Gallo’s bunting outlook

 iTunes Feed (Please rate and review us!)
 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Facebook Group
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

I don’t know if Charlie Blackmon is baseball’s most underrated player. Probably not. There are a lot of very good players. But just in case you don’t know exactly what’s up: Last season, Blackmon finished ninth among position players in WAR. Over the past three seasons, Blackmon has ranked 22nd, between George Springer and Kyle Seager. Blackmon is a center fielder who just finished with a top-30 expected wOBA. The year before that, he was in the top 40. Charlie Blackmon is very good, and, depending on your own personal thresholds, you might well say that Charlie Blackmon is great. He’s been lined up to be a part of the upcoming massive free-agent market.

But Blackmon has decided to take himself off the market entirely. Or, the team and the agency have decided, with Blackmon’s final approval. You don’t often see premium free agents sign extensions so close to the end of a contract, but Blackmon has agreed to an extra five years with the Rockies, with a $94-million guarantee. It’s more complicated than that, but the take-home point is that Blackmon is going to stick around in Colorado. Clearly, he’s fond of it there, and he’d hardly be the first player to decide that free agency appears less appealing than it used to.

Read the rest of this entry »

Adjectives like “impossible” and “improbable” and “unbelievable” are used quite liberally in sports broadcasting and writing — perhaps misused, even.

A walk-off win is not unbelievable; it happens semi-regularly. Likewise, winning a championship is not technically impossible for most teams (even if 11 clubs have a 0% chance of winning the World Series according to FanGraphs’ playoff odds). Nevertheless, people respond to narratives, and the overcoming-all-odds story is a popular one.

While we should employ such descriptors more sparingly, what Edwin Encarnacion did Monday night truly bordered on the improbable and impossible without sliding into hyperbole.

You’re probably aware that he hit an inside-the-park home run. While three 34-year-olds have hit inside-the-park homers since 2012 — David DeJesus, Jimmy Rollins, and Jason Bourgeois — Encarnacion is the oldest to do so in at least the past six seasons.

Here’s the video evidence:

https://gfycat.com/IdenticalBrownKookaburra

Encarnacion is not exactly fleet of foot. He’s a DH who was born in 1983. Encarnacion (25.6 feet per second) ranked 420th out of 465 MLB players in Sprint Speed last season, according to Baseball Savant’s leaderboard.

Read the rest of this entry »