Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jeff’s moderately close encounter with a volcano, various events that took place in baseball while he was away, Rob Manfred’s recent comments about changes to the game, MLB attendance issues, Ben’s Angels brunch, the early-season success of some supposedly tanking teams, stats about Dellin Betances, Patrick Corbin, and Kole Calhoun, and more. Then they answer listener emails about Gleyber Torres‘ power and the Yankees’ pursuit of the all-time team home-run record, errors and official scoring, the decline of Felix Hernandez, a two-handed pitcher, how the game would be different if MLB changed the ball every year, Josh Tomlin’s strange distinction, Hanley Ramirez and vesting options, and how to get into advanced stats, plus Stat Blasts about leaguewide launch angle, the teams with the most players ever to play each position in a single season, and the worst-hitting 2018 team positions.

Audio intro: Dawes, "From a Window Seat"
Audio outro: King Crimson, "Two Hands"

Link to photo of Ben’s Angels brunch
Link to Ken Rosenthal’s Rob Manfred Q&A
Link to story about David Hesslink and the Mariners’ trade
Link to EW interview with David Hesslink

 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

One of those baseball facts that might stick with me forever is that, after getting traded from the Mariners to the Astros, Randy Johnson put up a 1.something ERA. Specifically, including the playoffs, Johnson appeared in 13 games with Houston, and his ERA was 1.42. To be that dominant, in that era, under those circumstances, after having struggled before the deal — well, I don’t know what else there is to explain. I haven’t forgotten about it for 20 years. I’m sure I’ll remember for at least 20 years more.

We’re living in the middle of a similar fact. One that’s gone on longer, one that must be considered even more impressive. After getting traded from the Tigers to the Astros, Justin Verlander has put up a 1.something ERA. Specifically, including the playoffs, Verlander has appeared in 23 games with Houston, and his ERA is 1.36. In Verlander’s most recent start, against the Yankees, he allowed one run. That’s right on his season average — he’s allowed 12 runs over 12 starts. After allowing seven runs in the season’s first month, he allowed five in the second. Hitting Verlander of late has been more or less impossible.

Verlander was traded last summer, and was immediately good. We’ve already gone through a bunch of stories examining his turnaround, highlighting, especially, the improvement of his slider. That was a common conversation last fall — the one about how Verlander got better by making use of Houston’s slow-motion cameras. Yet Verlander only continues to grow. He remains, you could say, a work in progress, and he’s made a further adjustment in 2018 to get the most out of the pitches he has.

Read the rest of this entry »

CLEVELAND — In the seventh inning on Friday at Progressive Field, Astros starting catcher Brian McCann did not come out for his scheduled at-bat. Instead, fellow catcher Max Stassi appeared out of the third-base dugout as a pinch-hitter. Astros manager A.J. Hinch had elected to pinch-hit for his starting catcher with another catcher to face Indians left-hander Tyler Olson, owner of considerable splits. We don’t often see a manager pinch-hit for his starting catcher, but the decision worked: Stassi singled.

The Astros have not exactly made it a regular practice, but it was the eighth time they have pinch-hit with a catcher for a catcher this season in order to gain the platoon advantage. But the Astros are one of the teams that has regularly tried to do this with the left-handed McCann and right-handed Stassi and Evan Gattis. (With McCann going on the DL on Tuesday, the Astros’ aggressive catcher platooning will be placed on hold, probably.)

In an age where managers try to leverage handedness as often as possible, catchers have the lowest platoon advantage (41.4%) among all non-pitchers, according to research assistance from Sean Dolinar. Shortstop is next (42.8%) and is the only position that doesn’t enjoy a platoon advantage the majority of the time. What they share is status as specialized, glove-first positions:

If a club is looking for a position from which to extract more value by facing more opposite-handed pitchers, catcher is the untapped positional market.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 816
Jay Jaffe is progenitor of the very famous JAWS metric and also author of the reasonably famous The Cooperstown Casebook. On this edition of the program, he discusses Mike Trout’s legitimate Hall of Fame credentials, players who produced excellent early-career seasons but not similarly excellent overall years, and his evolving opinion of David Cone.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 52 min play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Read the rest of this entry »

Bob Melvin has plenty of experience interacting with umpires. The Oakland A’s skipper was a big-league catcher from 1985 to 1994, and he’s since gone on to manage 2,127 games over 15 MLB seasons. He knows what makes the men in blue tick, including what buttons can and can’t be pushed when arguing a call — an event which happens far less frequently since the introduction of replay review.

In the second installment of this series — we’re hearing from a different manager each week, generally focusing on a specific subject — Melvin talks about his relationship with umpires and the ways in which that dynamic has changed in recent years.

———

Bob Melvin: “I feel I have a good relationship with umpires. I was a catcher and you kind of build good relationships with umpires. Of course, since I’ve been managing, there has been some turnover — there are some younger guys I wasn’t with as a player — and you’re constantly trying to build relationships. You also have to hold them accountable and stick up for your team at times.

“You have to look at things from their shoes, too. They have a tough job, and there are certain days where you’re not as good as you can possibly be — I’m no different — so there is definitely a balance to strike. You have to hold them accountable but not go too far. I wouldn’t say there are any guys that I don’t get along with, to where you’d maybe see that in ejections.

Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last decade, Major League Baseball has taken steps to make the game safer for players on the field, not only instituting a seven-day disabled list for concussions but also crafting a pair of somewhat nuanced rules in order to avoid unnecessary collisions both on the pivot at second base and also at home plate.

On Monday, Anthony Rizzo seemed possibly to violate those rules, barreling to the plate in order to prevent Pirates catcher Elias Diaz from throwing to first to complete a double play. Rizzo ultimately succeeded: his collision with Diaz caused an errant throw, allowing two runners to score and turning a likely Cubs victory into a sure thing as the team went up 5-0 in eighth inning.

Did Rizzo actually do anything wrong, though? To answer that question, we actually have to consider two separate rules. To begin, let’s go with MLB’s slide rule first. The rule addresses the allowable — or, as they call it, bona fide — slide, which requires that a runner:

1. Begins his slide (i.e., makes contact with the ground) before reaching the base;
2. is able and attempts to reach the base with his hand or foot;
3. is able and attempts to remain on the base (except home plate) after completion of the slide; and
4. slides within reach of the base without changing his pathway for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder.

Here is Rizzo’s slide.

https://gfycat.com/HatefulAgonizingAustralianfreshwatercrocodile

Read the rest of this entry »

This is Jake Mailhot’s fourth post as part of his May Residency at FanGraphs. A lifelong Mariners fan, Jake now lives in Bellingham, Washington, just a little too far away from Seattle to make it to games regularly, which is sometimes for the best. He is a staff editor at Mariners blog Lookout Landing. He can be found on Twitter at @jakemailhot. Read the works of all our residents here.

Among the various career arcs in professional baseball, the conversion from starting pitcher to reliever is one of the more common ones. It’s a last resort for aging veterans and a tried-and-true way to get the most out of middling starters. But when a talented prospect is moved to the bullpen, there are bound to be questions. It has been generally understood that a starting pitcher is more valuable than a relief pitcher, so teams are usually more conservative with their prospects, often letting them at least try to work things out as a starter before pulling the plug. But in an era when relievers are throwing more innings than ever before, a high-octane reliever might prove to be more valuable than just another starter.

Back in 2016, the Mariners moved one of their best pitching prospects from the rotation to the bullpen. Edwin Díaz took to the conversion quickly and was in the majors a few weeks later, completely skipping Triple-A. He was soon installed as the Mariners closer and has been one of the best relievers in the majors since. His already excellent fastball velocity received the usual boost from shorter stints on the mound, and his slider has developed into a plus-plus pitch.

It was a risky move for the Mariners. Instead of letting the 22-year-old try to develop his changeup in the rotation, they shifted him to the bullpen and aggressively promoted him because the major-league team needed bullpen help desperately.

I wondered if any other teams had tried something similar. Below you’ll see the results of a very specific query: every relief pitcher who has thrown at least 10 innings in the majors and had been a starting pitcher in the minors as recently as last year. To narrow the field even further, these pitchers all recorded fewer than five innings pitched in Triple-A and have posted an average leverage index greater than 1.25 when entering the game.

It’s an interesting list. Jordan Hicks, the man with the fastest fastball in all the land, sits atop it with almost 27 innings pitched and just 16 strikeouts to his name. Then we have a Rule 5 pick, Brad Keller, who has recently been in the mix for high-leverage innings in the Royals bullpen. Moving on. Justin Anderson wasn’t a highly regarded pitching prospect in the Angels organization, but he has added more than 6 mph to his average fastball velocity out of the pen and given Mike Scioscia another option in his constant closer carousel. This article was almost about Anderson. But the final name on the list is far more intriguing — and not just because of his 80-grade baseball name.

Read the rest of this entry »

I imagine you already know that big-league hitters in 2018 strike out an awful lot more than big-league hitters in 2008 did. You could probably guess, too, that they hit for a somewhat lower average and a little less power. Even though some of that power differential will even out as the weather heats up this summer — we’re not exactly comparing apples to apples, here — I think it’s a relatively uncontroversial opinion to say that the game has changed in the past decade:

Furthermore, those changes in the way the game is played have forced us to adjust our understanding of what good, bad, and decent performances look like. We have had to reconcile ourselves to the notion that, although just 20 qualified hitters struck out more than 22.5% of the time in 2008, 50 are above that mark right now, and another 40 or so finished above it last year in a full season’s worth of data. Striking out nearly a quarter of the time doesn’t make a hitter an outlier anymore, and we’ve had to adjust our internal expectations for player performance accordingly.

Read the rest of this entry »