Joe Girardi adapted once necessity required it. (Photo: Keith Allison)
Necessity is said to be mother of all invention. It continues to be the impetus for creativity and movement away from tradition in Major League Baseball.
Jeff and I participated in the first postseason chat, a four-hour and three-minute affair Tuesday night that had moments of comedy, drama, soberness — and which featured 2,300 questions from a wonderfully engaged and spirited FanGraphs audience.
The subject of bullpen-ing came up early in the game. This isn’t surprising: it’s been a story of some interest heading into this postseason. I, for example, recently proposed that the Yankees ought to bullpen the Wild Card game. The Yankees, of course, have a dominant bullpen, the first major-league relief corps to feature five arms to have recorded strikeout rates of 30% or better. Aroldis Chapman looks like he’s back, hitting 103 mph, and he’s supported by Dellin Betances, Chad Green, Tommy Kahnle, and David Robertson.
Zack Granite is newly 25 years old, and less newly a rookie. Though he was drafted by and plays for the Twins, he was born on Staten Island and always rooted for the Yankees. He has a dog named Jeter. He grew up with the flourishing Yankees dynasty, and for some time it was all he’d ever known. I’m not sure, but it stands to reason that a younger Granite had an imagination. And I’m not sure, but it stands to reason that a younger Granite imagined one day helping the Yankees to win in the playoffs.
You could call it a cruel twist that, in Granite’s playoff debut, the Yankees should occupy the other dugout. Not that Granite was even supposed to play, but shortly after the beginning, Byron Buxton’s back started to hurt. Granite entered as the replacement, and he even reached on a sixth-inning single. In the eighth, he nearly reached again. With one out and none on, Granite’s speed might’ve opened the door just a crack. Granite would’ve stood on first base, after Tommy Kahnle couldn’t handle a flip. But Granite didn’t touch the bag. It was all more of a fly-by.
Aroldis Chapman is in the first year of the largest contract ever before awarded to a reliever. Chapman earned that contract for having proven himself as perhaps the most overwhelming one-inning pitcher in the modern history of the sport. Other relievers have been great, sure, but Chapman was something extraordinary. Extraordinary, that is, until a strange thing happened. Around the middle of the summer, Chapman was bad.
Perhaps he was bad only by his own standards. He was still throwing his fastball a hundred miles per hour. But Chapman struggled enough to lose his job as the Yankees’ closer. Over one stretch covering a month and a half, Chapman allowed a mediocre .724 OPS, with a strikeout-to-walk ratio well under 2. The arm strength was there, but the results were not, and, that fast, Chapman started to feel unreliable. Aroldis Chapman, of all people. He lost his air of invulnerability.
Since September began, Chapman has made 12 appearances. He’s generated two walks and 20 strikeouts, allowing a .250 OPS. Chapman took over Tuesday’s wild-card game after the outcome felt like a foregone conclusion, but he didn’t allow the Twins to open the door. He struck out Robbie Grossman swinging. He struck out Brian Dozier swinging. Joe Mauer managed to fight off a full-count delivery for a ground-ball single the other way, but then Chapman struck out Jorge Polanco swinging. It felt so perfectly normal.
Over the course of the last year, I’ve published projections for a boatload of prospects at this site. Now that the 2017 regular season is complete, I thought it might make sense to review how KATOH has performed with specific players. Last week, I looked at some instances where KATOH’s forecasts looked prescient. For this particular post, I’d like to look at some instances where KATOH’s forecasts have looked foolish.
Allow me to point out immediately that none of this is conclusive: we’re only a year (or less) into the big-league careers of the players included here. Labeling a six-year projection as definitively “right” or “wrong” following a single season is obviously premature. That said, we undoubtedly have a much clearer picture of these players’ futures than we did six months ago.
This analysis compares each player’s industry-wide consensus to his stats-only KATOH projection — which does not consider a player’s ranking on prospect lists. Stats-only is KATOH’s purest form and also the version that disagrees most fervently with the establishment. Note that I did not consider cases where all parties were wrong, such as Aaron Judge. Although KATOH’s No. 53 ranking of Judge looks silly now, it was on par with other rankings, which ranged from 44th to 145th.
Picking players for this article was obviously somewhat subjective. So if you have a player in mind that I neglected to mention, feel free to complain about it in the comments!
Prospects KATOH Liked Here are the players on whom KATOH has typically been more bullish than other outlets. Players are listed in general order of “failure” in 2017.
Last winter, KATOH ranked Cozens as the top prospect in baseball. The large outfielder proceeded to tarnish my reputation by hitting .210/.301/.418 with a 36% strikeout rate in Triple-A this year. There was a lot to like about Cozens’ 2016: he mashed 40 homers, stole 21 bases, and graded out well in right field — all as a 22-year-old at Double-A. But evaluators were concerned about his strikeouts and predicted his power numbers would crater outside of Reading. The book is far from closed on Cozens, who KATOH still sees him as a back-end top-100 guy. But tippy-top prospects don’t have seasons like Cozens’ 2017.
As expected, the Yankees beat the Twins in the AL Wild Card game last night. Unexpectedly, they won by asking four relievers to get 26 outs after Luis Severino couldn’t get out of the first inning. And in that victory, it was essentially impossible to not notice the difference in power between the two clubs.
Aaron Judge is the game’s most powerful player, so New York always has some kind of lead when it comes to raw strength, but this team isn’t defined just by their hulking right fielder. This Yankees team is built around power everywhere.
Dave Cameron: But I’m sure there are plenty of questions about what’s going on in Atlanta, and other off-season issues, so we’ll grab some of those too.
12:08
Dave Cameron: Also, I’m running the live blog for the NL Wild Card game tonight, so you’ll get an overwhelming dose of me chatting today.
12:09
toki: What kind of penalties are you expecting the braves to be handed? Do you expect them to lose prospects like the Red Sox did?
12:10
Dave Cameron: SInce we don’t have the information, it’s impossible to know, but it’s not that hard to note that no one in Boston got fired or resigned, and A.J. Preller was just suspended by MLB when he was with Texas and was accused of doing some shady stuff on the international scene. If Coppolella was forced to resign over the accusations, it seems like whatever he got caught doing was probably more blatant than what BOS or TEX did, so yeah, I’d expect some significant penalties for the Braves are still to come.
Periodically, I’ll be posting notes from in-person observations at Fall Instructional League and Arizona Fall League play. Each are essentially the scouting calendar’s dessert course, both in their timing and sometimes dubious value. I take bad fall looks with a large grain of salt as players are sometimes fatigued, disinterested, put in difficult situations purposefully so that they’ll fail, or some combination of these or other bits of important context. With that in mind here are links to past notes followed by this edition’s.
Cincinnati hosted Texas in the Reds’ instructional-league opener, and the game featured several pitchers with position-player backgrounds. The headliner was Hunter Greene, who sat 99-101 with a fastball spinning at a rate between 2200 and 2300 over two innings. He used both of his breaking balls quite frequently, first leaning on an inconsistent curveball in the low 80s and, later on, an upper-80s slider. The curveball flashed above average but its depth and bite varied. Greene’s slider was short and fringey, though he threw both breakers for strikes multiple times. His fastball command was less consistent, however, and Greene was hit hard (twice quite literally, by two second-inning comebackers), surrendering six runs.
Greene was followed by righty Wyatt Strahan, a 24-year-old reliever who hasn’t gotten out of A-ball yet, mostly due to injury. He was up to 96 on Monday with a plus slider and violent delivery. If he can stay healthy, he’s a potential bullpen contributor.
Among those on the mound for Texas were former position players James Jones and Jairo Beras. Jones was a two-way player on his high-school team in Brooklyn and again at Long Island University. The Mariners drafted him in the 2009 draft’s fourth round and he made the majors as a speed-first outfielder in 2014, stealing 27 bases in 28 attempts that year. Sent to Texas as part of the 2015 Leonys Martin trade, Jones continued toiling away at Triple-A through much of 2016 without offensive success and began to transition to pitching late last year. He blew out after a few pitching appearances late in 2016 and needed Tommy John surgery.
Jones is now back on the mound and pitching with interesting stuff, sitting 92-94 with a bit of late wiggle and a fringey curveball and changeup. His lower arm slot allows right-handed hitters to see the ball early and they have teed off on Jones in two looks I’ve had at him this fall.
Though it may not be Jones himself, this is what I think a realistic two-way player looks like, someone who can competently play a niche role on both sides of the ball. In Jones’ case, that means getting lefties out as a bullpen arm while also acting as a defensive replacement and pinch-runner. The chances of such a creature existing at all would be aided by roster expansion, something December’s CBA negotiations nearly yielded.
Beras sat 94-96 with an average slider. He isn’t as athletic as Jones but throws hard and is new to pitching. Both conversion arms are longshots but have major-league-caliber arms that need late-career refinement.
9/26
Tuesday, the Dodgers and White Sox had simultaneous home instructional-league games at Camelback Ranch for the only time this fall. Their fields are close enough to one another that one can stroll back and forth between games. I began on the Dodgers’ side, where they took on Cincinnati.
Reds third-rounder Jacob Heatherly sat 90-92 and commanded that pitch as well as his average curveball and changeup. He lacks any physical projection and, except for perhaps a bit of breaking-ball and changeup progression from pro reps and instruction, the cement is largely dry on his stuff. Realistically, Heatherly projects as a No. 4 or 5 starter, but his ceiling will be dictated by the level of command he’s able to develop. He’s advanced in that regard and could move quickly. Heatherly, who turned 19 in May, signed for $1 million.
SS Jeter Downs, the Reds’ comp-round pick from June, has also been impressive. Downs sprays hard contact to all fields and has shown enough arm strength to stay on the left side of the infield. I’ve yet to see his range and athleticism challenged, but what I’ve seen is pretty good.
Dodgers 17-year-old LHP Robinson Ortiz was 90-93 with bat-missing life and feel for a breaking ball that flashed above average. He’s listed at 6-foot-4 on the instructional-league roster but he’s closer to an even 6-foot. Though short, Ortiz is well built and has a strong, voluptuous lower half. His arm action is a bit long, but I generally like his delivery and athleticism enough to project him as a starter. Well-built 17-year-olds with good fastballs and breaking-ball feel are typically being talked about as top-50 draft picks, even if they’re a little short.
Want more height/weight fun? RHP Alfredo Tavarez was listed at 6-foot-5, 190 this year but is listed close to 250 on the instructional-league roster and he’s every bit of that. He put up big numbers in the AZL, striking out 47 hitters in 30 innings, but only sits in the upper 80s with his fastball. Tavarez does have a potential plus breaking ball but will need to drastically improve his command if he’s to survive with this kind of velocity.
On the White Sox side, Chicago first-round 3B Jake Burger had issues with throwing accuracy but took good at-bats and made some loud contact. I remain skeptical of his chances of staying at third base but do think he’ll hit. I recorded multiple below-average pop times from C Zack Collins, all in the 2.05-2.10 range. Like Burger, though, he takes great at-bats, rarely offering at pitches off the plate and showing easy pull power.
Greinke’s slider hasn’t changed. The frequency with which he’s thrown it has. (Photo: jnashboulden)
Over the last year or so, I’ve pestered Zack Greinke about his slider because I was sure it was the source of his difficult first season in Arizona. He’s resisted that characterization, telling me at times that his command was just a little off, but that he couldn’t blame anything about his slider on Arizona’s thin air and lack of humidity. Maybe he’s right — this year’s slider is a little different, but not enough to explain the overall difference between the two seasons. Instead, it might be a simplification of his approach that has really helped tonight’s Wild Card starter return to form.
One of two legitimate candidates for the AL Cy Young, Corey Kluber won’t be starting Game 1 of the ALDS. (Photo: Erik Drost)
CLEVELAND — While a lot of talk here and elsewhere has focused on bullpen-ing (not such a bad idea, right, Yankees?) and creatively leveraging pitching staffs early in the postseason, the Indians appear to be pursuing a different kind of unconventional strategy.
The club announced yesterday that, while staff ace and AL Cy Young candidate Corey Kluber will be fully rested for Game 1, he will not pitch Thursday against the Yankees. Trevor Bauer, one of the game’s best starters in the second half, will get the ball instead.
In this unexpected scenario, Kluber will start Game 2 and, if necessary, Game 5. Carlos Carrasco will start Game 3 in New York. Carrasco has been a significantly better road pitcher than home pitcher for his career (3.13 road ERA vs. 4.45 home ERA, 3.86 home FIP vs. 2.98 road FIP). He could face Luis Severino in that game, with Severino on regular rest. Or, since Sevenrino didn’t make it through an inning Tuesday, he could perhaps be available in Game 2. Josh Tomlin is penciled in as the tentative starter in Game 4 for Cleveland
