FanGraphs Baseball

Three years ago, this author, then employed as a major-league beat writer by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, traveled to Cincinnati for the final series of the regular season. The Reds were hosting the Pirates in games No. 160, 161, and 162. The conditions weren’t quite fall-like yet — temperatures sat in the low 80s in humidity-drenched southern Ohio and northern Kentucky — but the Pirates had, at the very least, secured a playoff berth, and their NL Central Division title hopes were still alive.

Those three days in Cincinnati became some of my most memorable on the beat. The series was interesting in part for the decisions made by Pirates leadership amidst the end-of-season chaos of September baseball, decisions made in a largely conventional manner at a time in the game when tradition was being challenged, when players’ roles had begun evolving more rapidly. We continue to see evidence of that evolution in 2017. On the eve of the AL Wild Card game, for example, reporters are asking managers about bullpen-ing, about probabilities, about non-traditional decision-making. This was the backdrop for my long weekend.

The series was memorable for the camaraderie in the press box and the post-game conversations outside the stadium, the type of interactions between writers and scouts — between writers and other writers — that’s perhaps becoming increasingly rare as the economics of the media industry continue to erode jobs and travel budgets. Similarly, some regard player-tracking as a threat to render scouts redundant.

Those three days in Cincinnati, for me, have provided raw material upon which to conduct a sort of personal archaeology, a collection of vignettes to revisit as the regular season comes to an end. The weekend offered some small but revealing examples of tradition’s concessions to science and efficiency in baseball. For better, for worse. The following is intended neither as analysis nor commentary. It’s simply a story.

FRIDAY Sept. 26, 2014

I arrived by air that morning in Cincinnati, having covered the previous series in Atlanta during which the Pirates had clinched just their second playoff berth — and second consecutive playoff berth — since 1992. I don’t remember much from the Atlanta series. It was the second time I had been in a beer- and champagne-soaked clubhouse, the celebration taking place in now-defunct Turner Field. I’m not sure if Uber had arrived in northern Kentucky at that time, but it must not have, because I took a cab to the hotel from the airport. I kept clothing and toiletries to one modestly sized piece of luggage, as I always did, which would fit in overhead storage in the plane, often a Southwest 737, to save time and avoid a trip to baggage claim. Fortunately, the dress code of a writer can be generously described as “business casual.”

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The 2017 regular season is officially in the books. We didn’t get any kind of dramatic finishes, with the No. 1 pick the only thing decided on the final day of the season; Pablo Sandoval remained a net negative for his employers by costing the Giants the top pick with his season-ending walk-off.

Despite the lack of pennant-race drama, however, this was still a pretty fun season, with a lot of spectacular individual performances and the emergence of a few true powerhouse teams. So, let’s take a look at a few players who helped define the 2017 season.

While Giancarlo Stanton captured the home-run title, Aaron Judge is the new face of what power looks like in baseball. He not only became the first rookie ever to hit 50 home runs, he was also arguably baseball’s best overall player this season; he was the only guy in the game to crack +8 WAR this season. Unlike the last time power spiked in MLB, this one is defined less by hulking one-dimensional designated hitters and more by the most freakish athletic specimens ever to play the game.

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Charlie Morton had a career year. In his first season with the Houston Astros, the 33-year-old right-hander is heading into October baseball with a record of 14-7 and a 3.62 ERA. The win total is a personal best, as are his 3.46 FIP and his 7.7 H/9.

Especially notable are his 10 strikeouts per nine innings and his 51.8% ground ball rate. The former is by far his highest, and the latter is by far his lowest. Morton was not only good during the regular season, he was also not the same pitcher he was in Pittsburgh.

“My stuff is different this year,” Morton told me on Thursday. “It’s not sinking as much — it’s harder, but it’s not sinking as much. My curve isn’t as vertical as it usually is; it’s not moving as much.

“When I was with the Pirates, from 2009-2015, I was a heavy sinker guy. I was over 60%, sinkers, and this year, against lefties, I might throw five sinkers in the whole game. My two-seam control has suffered a little bit, because I’m not throwing it as much. I’m four-seam, curveball, cutter, changeup — more of a mix. So really… it’s a balance of your identity, and of what you’re trying to do.” Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Ben’s chat with Bill James, a fan who got ejected for giving Gary Sanchez pitch locations, a suggestion for tweaking the wild card game, and Sammy Sosa, then discuss the teams whose organizational stocks have risen or fallen the most this season and wrap up with brief banter about a Patreon perk, awards voting, and Jason Benetti.

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Over in the American League, there’s a clear two-horse race between Chris Sale and Corey Kluber for the Cy Young Award. Both are head and shoulders above the rest of the league and both have very strong cases for the honor, depending on what metrics you prefer.

Over in the National League, that isn’t quite the case. Max Scherzer is the clear front-runner at this point, with a host of other pitchers behind him all trying to make an argument why they might have had better seasons. Clayton Kershaw has a lower ERA. Zack Greinke pitches in a much tougher park. Teammate Stephen Strasburg has a lower FIP.

Those are just the stats that measure outcomes, though. Let’s see what Statcast has to say about the sort of contact the other candidates are allowing to see if anybody has a real case against Scherzer.

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Last year, perhaps without even knowing it, Andrew Miller became the father of a bullpen revolution. It was a year ago when Miller, entering multiple games in the fifth and sixth innings, helped propel a Cleveland team down its No. 2 and No. 3 starting pitchers to the brink of a World Series title.

The Indians were lauded for their creative use of Miller, freeing him from the shackles of the save to impact games in high-leverage situations and for multiple innings. He avoided the fate of Zach Britton, another dominant left-hander, who looked on longingly from the Rogers Centre bullpen as his Orioles fell to the Blue Jays in an extra-inning Wild Card game.

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Although it’s not yet completely certain, it looks like the Rockies are going to earn a trip to the playoffs. Should they get there, they’re going to need someone who looks like an ace. And, you know what, even if the Rockies somehow miss the playoffs, there’s still going to be more baseball, in 2018 and beyond. In those years, the Rockies are going to need someone who looks like an ace. Even in this era where starting pitchers have slightly diminished importance, there’s no substitute for a No. 1. Every team could use one; every team badly wants one.

The Rockies might thank their lucky stars for Jon Gray. Not that it’s all been luck, of course — the Rockies drafted Gray in the first round, and the Rockies developed him. But, with pitching prospects, anything can happen, for almost any reason. There would’ve been countless opportunities for Gray’s career to veer off the tracks. Still could, I suppose. Nothing’s for sure. But where Gray is, now, a few weeks shy of his 26th birthday — he seems to be becoming the best starting pitcher the Rockies have ever had.

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Over the course of the last year, I’ve published projections for a boatload of prospects at this site. Now that the 2017 season is winding down, I thought it might make sense to review how KATOH has performed with specific players. For this particular post, I’d like to look at some instances where KATOH’s forecasts have looked prescient.

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.

Writing this article was a lot of fun. Like everyone else, I enjoy saying “I told you so” when I’m right. But I also acknowledge that I’m often wrong. So as much as I’d like to tout these cherry-picked success stories and move on to current projections, I feel I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t write another article pointing out KATOH’s misses. Stay tuned.

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 “success” in 2017.

Rhys Hoskins, 1B/OF, Philadelphia

As you’re probably aware, Hoskins had a pretty good summer. But before he was hitting homers at a ridiculous clip, Hoskins was an unheralded first-base prospect who had never cracked a major publication’s top-100 list. KATOH was all over him, though, due to his impressive minor-league numbers. My system ranked him No. 54 in the preseason and No. 14 when he was called up. He also cracked the All-KATOH Team in the preseason. The best minor-league hitters often succeed in the majors as well. As obvious as that sounds, the case of Rhys Hoskins shows that we sometimes overthink these things.

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