As this year’s June amateur draft was about to get underway, The Sporting News published an article called Jo Adell Embraces Opportunity to Be Role Model for African-American Youth. The title was soon amended to include the word “Angels”: Anaheim selected the 18-year-old outfielder from Louisville, Kentucky, with the 10th-overall pick.

Adell’s intentions are admirable. Good role models are an asset to society, and as the son of an educator, the Ballard High School product understands that as well as anyone. He also knows that professional athletes — like it or not — serve as role models. Their words and actions influence others. With that influence comes responsibility.

Adell has a bright future in the game. Touted as a five-tool player — Byron Buxton has been a common comp — he slashed .325/.376/.532 over his first 222 professional plate appearances. That fact that those numbers came in Rookie ball stands out as meaningful. While Adell is talented, he’s also a few months removed from having received a high-school diploma. There’s still a lot for him to learn, and that includes how to go about being a role model as a professional athlete.

I asked a number of MLB players what advice they would give Adell with respect to his goal of becoming a role model, particularly for African-American youth.

———

Chris Archer, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher: “Encouraging more black players to play baseball would be awesome. Baseball teaches you so many valuable life lessons. It’s not all about making it to the major leagues, but rather the opportunities that college may provide, or the life lessons you learn, like how to handle adversity.

“Being a role model is a large responsibility. If you want to be a role model, you’re not allowed to make mistakes. But the more role models you have — just in general — it’s going to be for the betterment of our community, our environment, and the world. My advice is to have the ability to speak out, but not be outspoken.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I was driving recently in Pittsburgh, in my decade-old Honda Accord, when an NPR radio interview captured my attention.

I can’t recall the names of the particular guests on this program (perhaps a reader can assist me in this effort), but they were discussing the expenses associated with building nuclear submarines, the expected life of a sub’s operation, and the concern that such costly projects could be made prematurely obsolete by advancements in technology.

Rich Smith of the Motley Fool confirms: nuclear subs are really expensive. Some estimates place the start-up costs for the construction of the first Ohio-class replacement sub of the Columbia class at $13 billion, or about 13 Jerry Worlds. Adds Smith:

After the first boat is built, subsequent subs should average closer to $7.7 billion each, according to the CBO. (The Navy thinks it can get them cheaper — $6.6 billion apiece, or $79 billion total.)

These Columbia-class subs are expected to remain in service for decades, from 2031 to 2085, writes Franz-Stefan Gady of The Diplomat.

The Navy is betting these ships can deter and operate stealthily for 50 years. That seems very optimistic. I’m not a naval expert, but I’m skeptical about the capacity to forecast the state of anything, let alone advanced martial practices and technologies, in the year 2085. It’s quite possible, I think, that the taxpaying citizens of the United States would be spending quite a bit of money on something that could be made obsolete well before 2085.

The subs are so expensive that the Navy might not be able to complete other projects without significant budget increase. There’s internal debate on how to spread current resources most effectively. I bring this up not to begin a discussion on military spending, but to illustrate how difficult it is to plan for the long term in any field, particularly in an age when technology is so disruptive, when capabilities and trends can change so quickly.

With that heavy topic in mind, let’s segue to something lighter but interesting: this year’s home-run surge.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

For a while, it seemed like Chris Sale was going to be an American League Cy Young Award shoo-in. Now, while Sale hasn’t exactly gotten much worse, the favorite might be Corey Kluber, who basically hasn’t allowed a run since coming off the disabled list three and a half months ago. If the winner isn’t Kluber, it’ll be Sale. If the winner isn’t Sale, it’ll be Kluber. I don’t know what it would take for neither to win, short of some weird form of voter collusion. The race is pretty obviously down to two horses.

In here, I’d like to highlight the performance of Luis Severino. Severino has not been as good as Sale, and he has not been as good as Kluber. Yet, in part because of those two pitchers, Severino might not have fully gotten his due, because he’s been the next-best pitcher in his own league. Last season, at 22, Severino was demoted from the Yankees’ starting rotation. Now he’s one of the biggest reasons why the 2017 Yankees have overachieved and nearly locked up a spot in the playoffs. The Yankees dreamed that Severino would one day turn into an ace. As young as Severino still is, it seems those dreams might’ve already come true.

Read the rest of this entry »

When examining the 2018 draft’s collection of top high-school shortstops, one is confronted with three vastly different physical entities in Santiago HS (CA) SS Brice Turang, Montverde Academy (FL) SS Nader De Sedas, and North Broward Prep (FL) infielder Xavier Edwards.

Edwards is explosive. A plus-plus runner with good hands and enough arm for the left side of the infield, he also possesses gap-to-gap power. He’s performed, in games, against elite pitching and might be my first pick among all 2018 high schoolers if we were picking teams for a game of sandlot ball tomorrow. He’s also a slight 5-foot-9 and 155 pounds.

De Sedas is a switch-hitting hammer who was being covered in his native Panama when he was just 13 years old. He moved to Florida late in adolescence and has shown big raw power from both sides of the plate, as well as feel to hit in games despite having adopted switch-hitting somewhat recently. But while De Sedas has premium arm strength and is smooth for his size, he’s also rather big. At a listed 6-foot-2, 192 pounds, De Sedas is already larger than Manny Machado (6-foot-3, 185) and Evan Longoria (6-foot-2, 170) were when coming out of high school.

Finally, there’s Turang. Lean, rangy, and acrobatic, he also features a plus arm. He’s instinctive, procedurally advanced, and a potential plus defender at short, but he may have limited, one-dimensional offensive impact.

As with any prospect, I’ve attempted to project the future defensive value of the three players mentioned here. Because of their vastly different builds, however, I became curious about the physical makeup of major-league baseball’s current shortstops and how the upcoming draft class — especially De Sedas, who belongs near the top of the class if he can stay at short — fits among them.

To address my curiosity, I began compiling not only the current heights and weights of the league’s shortstops but also their heights and weights at age 17 — or, roughly the age at which each of them was either drafted or signed out of Latin America. I then expanded my criteria to include all players who had recorded at least 450 innings at shortstop during the last three seasons. I also calculated both current BMI and also BMI at age 17 — as well as changes in height, weight, and BMI during that span.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

With just under two weeks to play in the regular season, much of the focus in media has turned to those teams participating in the postseason chase. We speculate on who’s going to get in, who’s best situated to advance in the postseason, etc., etc. By late September, though, the vast majority of actual major-league teams and players are already planning for next season.

And while the Rays have fallen out of the Wild Card picture, Rays pitcher Alex Cobb is positioning himself well for 2018.

After losing most of the previous two campaigns to injury and exhibiting something less than his previous form through the opening months of the current season, Cobb is saving his best for the second half. His surge is quite timely: he’s set to enter free agency this offseason, at a time when even reclamation arms can earn eight figures.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s dizzying loop hidden within the effort to build better baseball players. Because every player possesses a different body, it makes sense not to be prescriptive with mechanics. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions in baseball.

But there are still some underlying truths. All things being equal, power is good. Velocity is good. And so on. If coaching is tailored too closely to a perceived type, it might prevent the player from developing the sort of power or velocity to transcend that type. It’s possible that this is what happened to Andrelton Simmons for a few years.

Read the rest of this entry »

George Springer is hitting for contact.

Much has been written about how, this year, the Astros have easily the lowest strikeout rate in baseball. One of the most strikeout-heavy lineups around has opted to put the bat on the ball, and now the Astros have a giant lead in wRC+. Part of that improvement in contact comes from adding players like Josh Reddick and Brian McCann. Part of that improvement in contact comes from the emergence of Yulieski Gurriel. And part of that improvement in contact comes from George Springer’s improvement in contact.

Young players improve. When you start to learn the major leagues, you tend to get better. But this — this is extraordinary. This isn’t just a young Astros player doing better at baseball. This is *George Springer,* making contact on a consistent basis, and if that doesn’t immediately grab your attention, perhaps it’s because you’ve forgotten what Springer used to be.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 768
If a general manager were guaranteed that an amateur prospect would produce two-and-half wins in the majors just two years after joining an organization, that general manager would almost certainly draft the relevant prospect in the first round — if not among the the top-10 or even top-five picks of that first round. Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong has recorded two-and-a-half wins in the majors two years after being drafted — and yet was selected in the fourth round out of Illinois State. DeJong, Jose Martinez, and Tommy Pham entered the season with fewer than two career wins between them; they’ve produced more than 9.0 WAR, however, in 2017. Who’s the next great Cardinals non-prospect? Eric Longenhagen speculates on this and a number of other concerns.

A reminder: FanGraphs’ Ad Free Membership exists. Click here to learn more about it and share some of your disposable income with FanGraphs.

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 1 hr 16 min play time.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS