It’s been an utterly lost season for the San Francisco Giants. Sure, it’s not an even year, so finding the Giants outside of the playoff mix isn’t a total shock, but the second-worst record in baseball? Not exactly what Bay Area fans had in mind.
| 12:02 |
: Happy Friday, everyone. Jeff and I switched days this week because he wanted to go climb something this weekend. I fully expect there to be 20 trades in the next 24 hours since he’s gone.
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| 12:02 |
: If the Cubs are to get one more starter, who do you think they get?
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| 12:04 |
: The rumor of the morning put them on Darvish, but there are diminishing returns on adding another guy at that level. You’re starting Lester/Quintana/Arrieta in the postseason, so if you pick up Darvish, one of those guys makes just one start in a seven game series.
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| 12:05 |
: So I’d think it would be more like an Estrada type, a guy who could potentially be a buy low and would give them depth if Hendricks has more problems, then could maybe be a reliever in October.
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| 12:06 |
: With everyone focused on Nats bullpen issues, is adding a starter or left fielder the main priority now?
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| 12:06 |
: I don’t think they need a starter. They basically have a playoff spot locked up, and Scherzer/Strasburg/Gio/Roark is fine for the postseason.
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Earlier this week, I wrote about UCLA’s pitcher overuse problem. At one point in that piece, I provided a comparison between league-wide and Bruins-only Pitch Smart violation rates. Pitch Smart represents a series of guidelines designed to protect the health of young athletes.
The NCAA benchmarks I reported in that post on UCLA were slightly different than those I found last August, as Pitch Smart’s age 19–22 guidelines have changed over the past year.
A brief summary of the old and new criteria:
| Full Days Off For Recovery | 2016 Pitch Range | 2017 Pitch Range |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1–30 | 1–30 |
| 1 | 31–45 | 31–45 |
| 2 | 46–60 | 46–60 |
| 3 | 61–75 | 61–80 |
| 4 | 76–105 | 81–105 |
| 5 | 106–120 | 106–120 |
By and large, the 2016 and 2017 guidelines are similar. But there are two differences: one is a change in the pitch boundary separating three- and four-day rest periods; the other is in the fine print, where it’s recommended that pitchers shouldn’t be used on three consecutive days. Because that qualification didn’t exist last year, there was a loophole in the “rules.” MLB and USA Baseball didn’t (and still don’t) set a firm ceiling for workloads — they say that the appropriate limit varies from arm to arm — so pitchers could throw fewer than 30 pitches each and every day without defying the guidelines. Now, a Pitch Smart-adhering pitcher can’t string together more than two straight outings.
Let’s look at how often the average NCAA pitcher defies both editions of Pitch Smart recommendations. Both sets of violation rates are broken up by class year for the 2012–2015 NCAA pitcher population.
The guideline adjustments send nearly all collegiate violation rates upward. In the regular season, the figures only rise by a few ticks. But when it comes to tournament appearances, rates increase by an extra 1% for sophomores, juniors, and seniors. The end result is a further magnification of the overuse issues across college baseball. The older a pitcher gets, the more likely a coach is to abuse his arm. And violation rates rise sharply in the NCAA tournament, where upperclassmen are being used irresponsibly in over 10% of their appearances.
This is Matt Swartz’ fifth piece as part of his July residency at FanGraphs. A former contributor to FanGraphs and the Hardball Times — and current contributor to MLB Trade Rumors — Swartz also works as consultant to a Major League team. You can find him on Twitter here. Read the work of all our residents here.
When I tell people about my side career as a baseball analyst, they frequently ask me of what research I’m most proud. The answer? The work I did establishing that teams receive fewer WAR per Dollar when signing free agents away from other teams than when re-signing their own players.
My clearest and most thorough analysis of this topic came in the 2012 Hardball Times Annual. The results were initially met with strong skepticism when I published a post on the topic at Baseball Prospectus back in 2010. It took a couple years of evidence before I was able to persuade the sabermetric community that it was true — and, more importantly, that the reason for this phenomenon was that teams re-signing their own players had better information on them.
My 2012 Hardball Times Annual article tested and confirmed that this held true for a variety of players. Traded MLB players and traded minor-league prospects both tended to underperform their projections when compared to untraded players.
What’s the significance of this discovery? Generally speaking, it means that an “average” player who reaches free agency is overvalued by his projections relative to another “average” player who doesn’t reach free agency. So much of sabermetric analysis involves looking at free agents. Suddenly, I had research indicating that such analysis was based on a biased sample. The results immediately colored every potential free-agent signing. With every free agent I encountered afterward, I began asking myself: “is there some reason this player’s original team let him go?”
Faced with an expensive market for premium starting pitching, but in possession of one of the least effective rotations in the majors, the Twins are reportedly close to finalizing a deal for left-handed Braves pitcher Jaime Garcia.
A proportional response from MIN: About to upgrade their rotation by adding Jaime Garcia for a minor-leaguer, at relatively low cost.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 20, 2017
Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press has more information:
The Braves would pick up less than half of Garcia’s remaining obligation, the person with direct knowledge said, but that figure was still being discussed along with which player or players the Twins would surrender. Medical reports were still being evaluated as well, but the deal was said to be “very close to final.”
Entering Friday, the Twins (48-46) are surprisingly just a half-game behind the Indians, the reigning AL champs and and heavy division favorites. The Twins are also just a game behind the Yankees for the second Wild Card spot in what is expected to be a bit of a log jam. So there’s some cause for optimism.
At the same time, however, Minnesota ranks 25th in the majors in BaseRuns win percentage (.438), suggesting they’ve benefited considerably from sequencing. Entering Friday, FanGraphs expects the Twins to finish with 78 wins and 84 losses. Overall, the club possesses a 10.6% probability of reaching the postseason according to FanGraphs’ playoff odds — and a 2.6% chance of capturing the division. The projections, in other words, don’t have much belief in the current roster.
So with 68 games to play, the Twins find themselves in a somewhat delicate position, in close proximity to a postseason berth but quite possibly lacking the roster to really go for it.
Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Mariners’ and Marlins’ David Phelps trade, Sam Dyson’s bounceback, an eight-strikeout game, the Salina Stockade, Matt Davidson and Jeff Mathis, the first post-All Star Game weeks of Mike Trout and the Cubs, and early trade-deadline activity, then examine the results of a FiveThirtyEight survey about the most- and least-liked MLB teams.
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I don’t know if the Cubs are actually coming out of their funk, but it sure looks like they are. It feels like a matter of days before they re-claim first place in the NL Central, which is the outcome we’ve all long expected. There’s still work to do yet, but as the Cubs improve, it sends more eyes over to the Indians. The Indians have been in a funk of their own, and while they’re already sitting in first, they’ve been unable to shake the Twins and the Royals. Even the Tigers remain within conceivable striking distance, and they’ve begun to sell. The Indians were supposed to be better than this, and the clock, as a clock does, is ticking.
Struggling team? Check. Trade deadline approaching? Check. Observers are wondering how the Indians might look to get better in the week and a half ahead. One thought has been that the club could look to add another starting pitcher. With Danny Salazar about to return from injury, perhaps that wouldn’t be necessary. But for me, the key isn’t the return of Salazar. Rather, it’s the emergence of Mike Clevinger. Clevinger has stepped up in a big way, giving the Indians more than they thought they might have.
The Marlins? They’re out of it. At some point it seemed like they might have a chance, but now they’re out of it, ever so out of it, so they’ve gone into sell mode. The Marlins are used to being in sell mode. The Mariners? They’re not out of it. They’re out of it within their own division, but they’re close to a wild-card spot, like a lot of the American League. They’re close despite dealing with a thin and injured pitching staff. The Mariners are simultaneously too good to sell, and too bad to buy hard. Not to mention the farm isn’t good enough to buy hard anyway. The Mariners haven’t appeared to have that many options.
Put it all together, and that’s how you get a trade like this:
Mariners get
Marlins get
The Mariners could really use a starter. But also, they could really use a reliever, and Phelps remains under team control for 2018. So, he’s not just some kind of stretch-run rental. And although he’s no Kenley Jansen, he’s pretty good and awfully interesting. The price is four guys from the low minors. We shouldn’t pretend like any of us have any idea what they’re going to become. It’s another Jerry Dipoto exchange of low-level depth for high-level, shorter-term security.
On Tuesday night, the Yankees made a considerable pre-deadline splash in acquiring Todd Frazier, David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle.
While the Yankees hope a slumping Frazier returns to form and upgrades their corner-infield situation, the real impetus of this trade appears to be the attempt to create an uber bullpen that stacks up against any unit in the game, one that could give the club a competitive edge should it advance to the postseason.
A few weeks ago, we heard from Baltimore infielder Manny Machado on how he prepares for an upcoming series. Today, we explore the subject from a pitcher’s perspective. On the same day I spoke to Machado, I asked Orioles right-hander Dylan Bundy about how he goes about readying himself for his next start.
Like most every other member of a rotation, Bundy throws a bullpen session between starts, and he follows that up by watching video and reading scouting reports. But not every pitcher goes about those things the exact same way. Bullpen routines differ, as do the approaches to studying opposing lineups. Here is how Bundy does it.
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Dylan Bundy on preparing for a start: “Not every bullpen is the same. Some days I go out there knowing my curveball wasn’t very good in my last start, so I’ll work on my curveball that day. But most of the time, I’m throwing fastballs and changeups, and that’s it — 20 to 25 pitches. I have a basic routine. At least the first nine or 10 pitches are usually fastballs — up, down, in, out — and then I’ll throw four or five changeups. If I feel great after that, I’ll shut it down. If not, I’ll throw a few more pitches.
“Sometimes my body isn’t feeling all that great — the ball isn’t coming out the way I want it to — so I’m not going to work on pitches. I’m not going to work on things like movement, or even location, because I don’t have my body in the right shape to do all that stuff. That day, I’m just kind of moving. I’m throwing pitches and loosing up my arm and my body. I’m working mechanically, trying to feel the way I need to feel for the next game I’ll be starting.
