12:03

Jay Jaffe: Hey folks, good afternoon and welcome to another edition of today’s chat. Apologies, there will be a few minutes delay in me getting started as I’m putting the finishing touches on today’s post, regarding Jake Odorizzi’s no-hit bid. Please enjoy this if you haven’t seen it already MLB @MLB The absolute unit that could. 13 Sep 2018

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This has been an exciting year for rookie performances. Juan Soto has looked like the best teenage hitter in history, Ronald Acuna has helped lead the Braves to a (surprising) lead in the NL East, and Shohei Ohtani has short-circuited our understanding of player value with his two-way achievements. Rookies have always been a key component to baseball’s excitement, and this year’s crop is no exception.

Now, quick: what player leads rookies in second-half WAR? If you guessed Acuna, congrats! Acuna has caught fire, putting up a 190 wRC+ and 3.4 WAR since the break — second-best in baseball behind Matt Chapman’s 3.7 mark during that timeframe.

Let’s continue, though. Who’s second amongst rookies since the break? Soto? Sorry, no. Ohtani? Nope, not even after accounting for his contributions on all sides of the ball. It’s not the workman-like Brian Anderson, nor is it defensive wizard Harrison Bader. No, second among rookies in WAR during the second half is New York Mets second baseman Jeff McNeil. For some, perhaps that makes sense. For many, though, the likely response is, “Who?”

That’s understandable. Unless you’ve watched a Mets game since July 24th — and let’s be honest, why would you if you lived outside the New York MSA? — you’ve probably not heard of McNeil. Even if you were a prospect hound, McNeil could have evaded your eye. He didn’t appear on prospect lists for the Mets here at FanGraphs, at Minor League Ball, or Baseball Prospectus. At FanGraphs, only the enigmatic Carson Cistulli mentioned McNeil in an early July edition of the Fringe Five.*

*Since this article came out, it has come to my attention that several articles focused on or mentioning Jeff McNeil have been written by several authors. Among them include the Baseball Prospectus and Baseball Prospectus Mets prospect writers Jarrett Seidler (May 2018), Jeff Paternostro, and Alex Rosen (May 2018). Jeff’s coverage of McNeil in particular goes back as far as McNeil’s second season in 2014. This oversight was completely accidental on my part and not meant to disregard or disparage their work or the work of anyone else who has written about McNeil in the past

For a Mets fanbase that has observed the front office regularly block prospects in favor of flawed veterans — at least they finally freed outfielder Brandon Nimmo — it has to be mildly gratifying to see a young player getting reps in the waning days of the season. McNeil is not only second in WAR amongst rookies in the second half, he is 13th among all hitters by the measure.

Given McNeil’s lack of obvious tools, there’s still reason to doubt that he can put together a substantive major-league career, let alone sustain the pace he’s established since July. Despite these concerns, however, it’s encouraging that the Mets have continued to give McNeil — and Amed Rosario and Nimmo — sufficient playing time to earn a place on the big-league club.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the unlikely championship season of the Northwest League’s Eugene Emeralds, Jacob deGrom‘s latest hard-luck loss, and maintaining perspective about the Phillies’ late-season swoon, then answer listener emails about an MLB ballpark sleepover, whether making ballparks bigger would counter the three true outcomes, Chris Davis’s strikeouts vs. batting average and the worst seasons of all time, Javier Baez and “creating chaos,” the value and cost of good and bad third-base coaches, and clutchness, Dansby Swanson, and Giancarlo Stanton, plus a Stat Blast about the odd batted-ball effects of Citi Field and a last-minute Willians Astudillo update.

Audio intro: Lord Huron, "Emerald Star"
Audio outro: Rakim, "Flow Forever"

Link to Emeralds walk-off balk
Link to Craig Edwards on Baez
Link to Russell Carleton on third-base coaches
Link to Jeff’s post on Citi Field
Link to Carson Cistulli on the best hitters in space
Link to first Astudillo video
Link to second Astudillo video

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Episode 833
Nate Freiman was a professional ballplayer for nine seasons, during two of which he served as first baseman for the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball. He served, more recently, as FanGraphs’ resident for the month of August. He is, not coincidentally, the guest on this edition of the program.

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 45 min play time.)

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The other day, I was reading something written by Tom Verducci over at Sports Illustrated. Verducci was ultimately making an argument about Jacob deGrom and his Cy Young candidacy, but on the way there, he talked about what’s apparently been dubbed the Mystery of Flushing. The mystery concerns why the Mets can’t hit at home. More specifically, it’s about why the Mets’ team BABIP consistently suffers at home. Citi Field has been modified multiple times, but it was modified most dramatically before the 2012 regular season. Since 2012, the Mets rank last in the majors in runs scored at home. They rank seventh in runs scored on the road. And, since 2012, the Mets rank last in the majors in BABIP at home. They rank third in BABIP on the road. There’s an existing BABIP gap of 30 points. This is spanning the better part of a decade. That’s big, and that’s weird. It’s worthy of some kind of investigation.

Verducci’s article, to be clear, was missing something. He analyzed the Mets’ hitters, but he didn’t analyze the Mets’ pitchers. Since 2012, they’ve allowed the eighth-fewest runs at home. They’re in 17th in runs allowed on the road. And, since 2012, they’re 12th in BABIP allowed at home. They’re 28th in BABIP allowed on the road. Run scoring in general is harder at Citi Field. Turning batted balls into hits in general is harder at Citi Field. Mets hitters are hurt, and Mets pitchers get to benefit. But a question remains: why? Why is Citi Field so strange?

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Reliever performance is volatile, fluky even from year to year. One season, a closer is dominant; the next, he’s just average. Over the past 40 years, there have been 59 relief seasons of at least 3.0 WAR. Only Rob Dibble, Eric Gagne, Rich Gossage, Tom Henke, Kenley Jansen, and Craig Kimbrel have produced seasons of that standard consecutively. By comparison, 10 starting pitchers have exceeded 7.0 WAR in consecutive seasons (67 seasons total), and 10 position players have exceeded 8.0 WAR in consecutive seasons (83 seasons total). Those 59 relief seasons were compiled by 41 different relievers, and three of those seasons are happening right now.

Josh Hader’s second half hasn’t been as good as his first after a forgettable All-Star Game, but with a 1.83 FIP and a 2.08 ERA, Hader is right at 3.0 WAR. In a lot of seasons, a solid finish to the year would make Hader the highest-rated reliever by WAR. This year, however, Hader is solidly in third place behind Edwin Diaz and Blake Treinen.

A year ago, Diaz posted a 4.02 FIP and a 3.27 ERA. That’s not bad, but it’s also not great. Diaz struck out 32% of batters faced, which is quite strong, but he also walked 12% of batters and gave up 10 homers. This season, Diaz is using his slider a bit more to get swings outside of the zone. The results have been staggering: he’s increased his strikeouts by about 50% while decreasing his walks and homers by 50% as well. With a few weeks to go, Diaz has piled up 3.7 WAR thanks to a 1.38 FIP — or 34 FIP- when factoring in league and park, which allows us to compare across eras. Only four relievers have ever put up a FIP- that low: Wade Davis, Gagne, Jansen, and Kimbrel (twice). The increased specialization of the closer role means that those four players all come from the past 20 years. Although Diaz’s 1.95 ERA and 48 ERA- are very good, they are not the best marks in the game. That honor goes to Treinen.

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The best part of being a lawyer, aside from winning cases, is using long and cool words like fiduciary and promissory estoppel and collateral attack and forcible entry and detainer. The worst part of being a lawyer is when you have to give people bad news, to play the role of the “fun police.” This piece falls squarely into the latter category.

Enter Nationals southpaw Sean Doolittle, who, as our very own Carson Cistulli explained last week, has issued a challenge. Specifically, this challenge:

Awesome! Bat flips are awesome. Like this one.

Shortly after his comments were published, Doolittle later said he was joking.

That is, as they say, unfortunate. Really unfortunate, in fact, because I agree with Dan Gartland and Scott Allen: this challenge is awesome. Or, more precisely, it would be awesome if the rules allowed it. Alas, today I’m forced — in my capacity as an officer of the fun police — to inform you, Dear Reader, that Doolittle’s idea is probably prohibited.

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Does anybody have a phone number for Vida Blue or Dave Stewart? Maybe Tim Hudson? The A’s could use another starter for their playoff push, because on Tuesday, they got the definitive news on Sean Manaea, and it was quite bad. The 26-year-old lefty hasn’t pitched since August 24 due to what was initially diagnosed as shoulder impingement and then revised to tendinitis in his rotator cuff. Not only will he not return this season, as initially hoped, but he’ll undergo arthroscopic shoulder surgery next week, and is expected to be sidelined through 2019.

The timeline isn’t unlike that of a late-season Tommy John surgery candidate such as the White Sox’ Michael Kopech, but returns from shoulder surgery are far less predictable than those from ulnar collateral ligament repair. In Manaea’s case, the exact diagnosis is unclear, at least as far as the general public goes; the range of possibilities could include a bone spur in his shoulder, and/or a tear in his rotator cuff, labrum, or anterior capsule — or some combination of those injuries. Manager Bob Melvin told reporters, “The specifics we’ll talk about more after the surgery, so we’ll know exactly what was repaired.”

Ouch. Say, what’s Barry Zito doing these days?

Manaea is the 10th Oakland starter to land on the disabled list (a total of 13 stints, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser) and the fifth to suffer a season-ending injury. The other four were Tommy John recipients: Jharel Cotton and A.J. Puk were cooked before the season even started, while Opening Day starter Kendall Graveman and April 1 (game four) starter Daniel Gossett combined for just 12 starts before going down. Indeed, the first cycle through the A’s rotation looks like the dwindling cast of a horror movie, with Manaea (who started the season’s second game) and Andrew Triggs (who started the fifth, and is now on a rehab assignment, recovering from a nerve irritation issue) currently sidelined. Daniel Mengden, who started the season’s third game, is the only one currently active; in late June and early July, he served a DL stint for a sprained right foot. Also out are lefty (and perennial DL denizen) Brett Anderson, who is nearing a return from ulnar nerve irritation, and righty Paul Blackburn, who’s without a timetable as he works his way back from lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow).

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Managing a bullpen is one of the biggest challenges a big-league skipper faces. Starters are going fewer and fewer innings, multi-inning closers have gone the way of the dinosaur, and roles have begun to blur. Matc-ups have thus become increasingly important, and determining them isn’t as simple as scanning a stat sheet. This isn’t Strat-O-Matic, it’s real life, and workloads and psyches need to be factored into the equation.

A.J. Hinch has done a good job with this balancing act. Having quality arms at one’s disposal obviously helps — and the Astros clearly have some quality arms — but optimizing their usage is nonetheless an art form. The numbers suggest that Hinch is more of a Rembrandt van Rijn than a Jackson Pollock (no disrespect to the latter, the reference is to technical proficiency). Houston relievers have both the best ERA and best FIP of any team in the majors, while their walk and strikeout rates are things of beauty. By and large, Hinch knows which buttons to push… and when to push them.

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A.J. Hinch: “It’s definitely changed from my playing days to now. We’ve been softly eliminating perfect roles. I think there will always be a closer. There will always be setup guys. There will always be guys who are long men or lefty specialists. I’m not taking about those roles. It’s more that I’ve watched the game evolve to the point where managers are using their relievers creatively.

“There’s how Terry Francona used Andrew Miller a couple of years ago. There’s how we used the bullpen in the playoffs last year. Closers are being used on the road more often. Lefties are getting righties out if the numbers suggest you don’t have to play a perfect matchup. I think the creativity within organizations has grown, and that’s impacted the manager role, how we utilize our weapons.

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