While pitcher wins and losses have been abandoned by many as a means to assess a pitcher’s effectively, the traditional measurement of performance from a bygone era is still attached to every pitcher in the game. And even though pitchers have limited control over the ability to win and lose games, Chris Archer’s 19 losses last season do tell a story. They tell a tale of frustration, of an uneven campaign, and of poor luck on balls in play (and out of play) even as his underlying skills and fielding-independent numbers were suggestive of a pitcher who deserved a better fate.

Despite Archer’s 27.4% strikeout rate and the 19.5-point differential between his strikeout and walk rates (K-BB%), the Rays still managed to lose 23 of the 33 games Archer started.

But his Opening Day start against the Yankees suggested that Archer might be poised not only to bounce back by traditional measurements, but that he might be ready to leap to a new level of underlying performance thanks to an improved pitch.

After working as a top-of-the rotation arm mostly via a fastball-slider combo, Archer might have a new important variable for opponents to consider: an improved changeup.

Archer threw 13 changeups in the season opener versus the Yankees, and many of them were of the fading-, diving-, bat-missing, lefty-neutralizing variety.

An Archer change against Jacoby Ellsbury…

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We now have landing pages for all 30 Major League Baseball teams. These pages can be accessed through the Teams menu on the navigation bar above, simply by clicking on a team’s name. You can also access the pages directly, like so (no spaces in team names):

Many of the stats and features on the team pages are available in similar forms elsewhere on the site. We’ve now collected them into one place, however, so that readers can more quickly access team-specific information and analysis. As with any new addition to FanGraphs, we plan on expanding and adding features to the team pages as time goes on.

There are five different tabs on each page: Summary, Stats, Schedule, Pitcher Usage, and Depth Chart.

Summary

This is a quick overview of the team’s season. It includes boxes for the next and most recent games, division standings, team stats, depth chart, and roster notes.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about Jake Arrieta’s velocity loss, the league’s artificial velocity gain, and whether the Astros won the winter, then answer listener emails about topspin and the turf, the Mariners’ and Blue Jays’ 40th anniversaries/seasons, disagreeing with projections, intentional-walk predictions, Madison Bumgarner’s batting, the negative value of player mistakes, single-game double-play leaders, a pitcher who always throws strikes, forecasting final stat lines, and more.

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Episode 729
Managing editor Dave Cameron is the guest on this edition of the program, during which he discusses not only the opportunities available to, but also the challenges that face, players who possess competence both as hitters and pitchers; examines one of the few metrics that becomes reliable in a sample size of one; and explains the strange composition of the Padres’ roster.

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 44 min play time.)

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Tuesday was a good day for the Cubs. Most of them are good days for the Cubs, but on Tuesday, they earned their first win of 2017, edging out the Cardinals 2-1. Jason Heyward and Javier Baez drove in the runs, but the star was Jake Arrieta, who spun six innings with just an unearned run going against him. He piled up six whiffs, and it was a good way for him to get things going. If the Cubs have any potential vulnerability, it has to do with rotation depth. As long as Arrieta and the other guys are clicking, the Cubs are at least as good as anyone else.

On TV, Arrieta looked effective. In the box score, Arrieta looks effective. But what was the deal with his fastball? This is an open question. I don’t have an answer. I just have evidence that makes me think thoughts.

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Last spring, in Dodgers camp, a remarkable thing happened without any of us noticing. It’s not uncommon, of course, for a young prospect to seek out a veteran starting pitcher for conversation. That sort of thing happens all the time. But when Jharel Cotton was soaking in knowledge from Scott Kazmir that day, something unique was happening. Baseball’s top changeup was hanging out with baseball’s second-best changeup. A baton was being passed.

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On opening day, the Padres lost to the Dodgers by 11 runs, and the score makes the game seem closer than it was. It was more or less how the game was expected to go, and half the postgame stories revolved around the same narrative: It’s going to be a long season for San Diego. And, you know what, it probably will be a long season for San Diego. But after game number two, the Padres and Dodgers are even at .500. The Dodgers didn’t just lose on Tuesday — they got blanked, 4-0.

Yangervis Solarte hit a home run. That was a big deal. Erick Aybar went 3-for-3 with two doubles and a walk. That was a big deal. Wil Myers scored on a pop-up to short. That was a big deal. But the biggest deal of all was Clayton Richard, and his eight shutout innings. Richard threw 69% strikes and induced four double plays, and he wound up with a game score of 75, tied for the second-best mark of his career. His only better game came in 2012. Clayton Richard isn’t supposed to turn in these outings.

He won’t make a habit of it. Nobody could. But that isn’t the point. The larger point is that Richard is back, he’s healthy, and he’s rebuilt. He’s 33 years old and he’s part of a rotation many expect to be the worst in the league, but you have to give Richard some credit. He possesses a true 80 skill.

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Last year’s playoffs were seen as a win not only for the Cubs and their fans, but also for proponents of the relief ace. On a national stage, Terry Francona used Andrew Miller early and often to put out fires almost regardless of inning. He’d been doing it ever since Cleveland acquired Miller in the summer, of course, but here was a manager deploying the strategy on the game’s largest stage.

Not every team can be blessed with having both Miller and Cody Allen on their roster, though, nor can every team have both Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman. Most teams are lucky enough to have a good closer, and most of those teams employ the traditional strategy of waiting until the ninth inning to use their best reliever. Much has been made of the strategic merit of that, but it’s a system that helps players know their roles on the team, and that has value, too. But if a team isn’t blessed with a Miller-type player, then they need a sturdy bridge to arrive at that closer. Even Cleveland and New York need help from guys without well-known names.

We’ve been fixated on the idea of the relief ace. The idea is so tantalizing and so intoxicating. Not only is it awesome to see Miller jump in and melt faces whenever Tito desires, but it’s a bit of a high for sabermetric types to see something for which they’ve argued so strenuously actually getting implemented in games. And this isn’t to say that the relief ace is a bad idea! It’s an exceedingly good idea, if the usage of the pitcher is properly managed. But the relief ace, and the closer, don’t matter a ton if the rest of the guys in the bullpen aren’t effective.

Take the Giants’ opener on Sunday, for instance. Madison Bumgarner went seven innings. Bruce Bochy needed just two innings from his bullpen to hold a one-run lead. A lot of teams have a setup man to serve as an opening act for the closer, and indeed, the Giants were supposed to have Will Smith out there. He’s out for the year with Tommy John surgery, though. So the duty fell to Derek Law, who promptly coughed up the lead, and the Diamondbacks walked it off against Mark Melancon in the ninth.

San Francisco’s bullpen, outside of  Melancon, looks almost entirely the same as it did last year. They appeared in the bottom half of our bullpen power rankings for a reason. There just isn’t enough firepower there, even if they likely aren’t as disastrously bad as they were down the stretch last year, from a true talent perspective. They may have replaced Santiago Casilla with Melancon, but the relief corps isn’t strong enough to compensate when a starter only goes five.

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Jameson Taillon will be throwing a lot of two-seamers when he takes the mound tonight for the Pirates at Fenway Park. It’s become his main course of attack. According to the 25-year-old right-hander, 70% of his fastballs are now twos, and that’s the pitch he prefers to go with “in any action count.”

It fits his team’s recent philosophy. Pittsburgh pitchers have been baseball’s best ground-ball hunters, putting up MLB’s highest ground-ball rate over the past six seasons. With a modus operandi of down, down, down, they’ve lived at the bottom of the strike zone with almost religious fervor.

Expect that to change somewhat in 2017 — even for two-seam purveyors like Taillon. The Bucs aren’t suddenly all about up, up, up, but kneecaps and ankles are no longer exclusive territory. Per pitching coach Ray Searage, increased elevation is in the offing.

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