Brandon Kintzler doesn’t fit your standard closer profile. The 32-year-old righty isn’t a power pitcher, at least not in terms of missing bats. He averaged just 5.8 strikeouts per nine innings last year while earning 17 saves with the Minnesota Twins. Featuring a sinker that he threw 82% of the time, at an average velocity of 92 mph, he had a 61.9% ground-ball rate and 3.15 ERA.

And then there’s his background. A 40th-round pick by the San Diego Padres in 2004, Kintzler was pitching in an independent league three years later — and not particularly well. The Brewers nonetheless gave him a chance, and he rewarded them by beating the odds and making it to the big leagues. After solid seasons as a setup man in 2013 and 2014, things once again went south. Following an injury-ravaged 2015 that saw him throw just seven innings, Milwaukee cut him loose. The Twins signed him prior to last season.

Kintzler is well acquainted with operating rooms. Since entering pro ball out of Dixie State College, he’s undergone repairs to his shoulder, elbow, and left knee. All have had major impacts on a career that has seen him go from non-prospect to arguably the least-respected closer in the game.

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Kintzler on his sinker-heavy approach: “I think everyone has different stuff. We all have different deception. We all have different… everyone talks about spin rate. I just think everyone is different. What I do works for me. I found out that what makes me successful is attacking with my fastball and forcing action. Could I try to strike out more people? Probably. But that means too many pitches, and I want to throw every day.

“The slider was my pitch coming up through the minor leagues. Read the rest of this entry »

By now, the most prolific pitchers of the spring have put in the equivalent of three major-league starts, some close to four with how short the average start has become. And as much as we talk about the inconsistent talent level in the spring, these starters have mostly faced major-league-quality hitters because the first four to five innings of spring baseball is a decent approximation of regular-season ball. It’s not entirely irresponsible to make certain observations about a pitcher two weeks into the season, so we might as well do it now, too. So let’s talk about Taijuan Walker. Again.

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Earlier this week, Jon Heyman reported that the Cardinals and Yadier Molina were “getting close” on a contract extension. With Molina, 34, years seem to be as much as an issue as the dollars involved. Heyman reports that Molina was initially seeking a four-year extension, while the club countered with a two-year deal. Can they find common ground on a three-year contract?

Molina is entering the final year of his current deal, which features a mutual option for next season. He’s given the club a deadline of Opening Day to reach an agreement, though if the club offered him Russell Martin-money in mid-April, I suspect he would consider it.

Molina told MLB.com on Tuesday that the clock on extension talks is “running.” Said Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak: “We understand there is a deadline. I think everyone is going to roll up their sleeves and continue to work at it.”

But is the clock running out on Molina?

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It feels like things with the Phillies should be a little more settled than they are. That could just be my own impatience, but even on the pitching side, we have to see if Aaron Nola and Vince Velasquez can stay healthy. And as for the young position players, Odubel Herrera might be the lone sure thing, and he’s bizarre. Maikel Franco still needs to prove that he’s valuable. J.P. Crawford needs to step up his own game. There’s been progress, but the actual core here is still being built.

Thinking about that led me to think about Aaron Altherr. Wednesday’s spring-training highlights also led me to think about Aaron Altherr.

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Paul Sporer and I were responsible for providing the starting-rotation installments of last week’s positional power rankings, posts which you can access here and here. One of the interesting things I took from the exercise was the absence of the Toronto Blue Jays from the top 15 of those rankings.

Blue Jays starters led the American League in ERA (3.64) last season. If you prefer more advanced measures, the Blue Jays’ rotation led the AL with 15.3 WAR and finished second in FIP (4.07) to Cleveland. This season, all of Toronto’s starting pitchers of significance return save for R.A. Dickey.

But despite finishing as the AL’s most productive rotation last season and despite losing arguably its weakest link in Dickey, the Jays’ rotation appeared in last week’s positional rankings as just the eighth-best staff in the AL and the 16th-best such group in the game. FanGraphs projections have the Blue Jays staff ranked behind the Red Sox and the Yankees in the AL East, and if that holds, it could be damaging to Toronto’s postseason aspirations.

Our 2017 forecasts for the Blue Jays’ likely starting pitchers…

16. Blue Jays

Name	IP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9	BABIP	LOB%	ERA	FIP	WAR
Aaron Sanchez	205.0	7.9	3.2	0.9	.302	73.7 %	3.69	3.86	3.4
J.A. Happ	181.0	7.8	2.8	1.2	.303	72.5 %	4.11	4.15	2.6
Marcus Stroman	169.0	7.5	2.4	0.9	.313	71.3 %	3.85	3.64	3.2
Marco Estrada	167.0	7.0	2.9	1.4	.277	71.6 %	4.31	4.62	1.9
Francisco Liriano	149.0	9.6	4.1	1.2	.310	74.3 %	4.11	4.22	1.8
Casey Lawrence	37.0	5.1	2.4	1.5	.312	67.9 %	5.20	5.04	0.2
Mat Latos	38.0	6.6	3.0	1.3	.309	70.2 %	4.77	4.69	0.3
Mike Bolsinger	9.0	8.5	3.5	1.3	.317	71.7 %	4.51	4.36	0.1
Conner Greene	9.0	5.8	4.6	1.4	.311	67.6 %	5.77	5.63	0.0
Ryan Borucki	9.0	5.8	3.8	1.6	.310	68.3 %	5.59	5.54	0.0
Total	973.0	7.7	3.0	1.1	.302	72.3 %	4.11	4.18	13.4

So what’s going on here?

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This is Kate Preusser’s fourth and final piece as part of her month-long residency. It has been a pleasure to host her work! Missed her previous posts? You can read them here. Listen to her appearance on FanGraphs Audio here.

“What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error, but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?”

–Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding

On paper, it looks like Jurickson Profar had a successful WBC stint for Team Netherlands. He batted .464 during the team’s run through the Classic, with five doubles, four RBIs, and a home run — this while also playing a passable center field, a position at which he’s never recorded a start as a professional.

But Profar’s sterling performance will be overshadowed — for him, at least — by a baserunning blunder made in the first inning of an elimination game against Puerto Rico. Andrelton Simmons led off that game with a single. Xander Bogaerts was hit by a pitch right after that. When Profar followed with another single, it could have potentially loaded the bases for the Dutch. Could have, except that Simmons had just gotten picked off trying to steal third against Yadier Molina — because, I don’t know, maybe he didn’t recognize one of the best defensive catchers in the world with his blond hair?

But back to the Profar single. Even after accounting for Simmons’ caught stealing, that single still put the Dutch in a good position, with two runners on base and just the one out. The advantage didn’t last long, however. After rounding first, Profar used the opportunity to gesture towards the Netherlands crowd — an admittedly smaller contingent than Puerto Rico’s — and was slow getting back to the bag. Yadier Molina, a tiger who has the reflexes of a cobra that’s also a member of MENSA, threw him out. Which, of course he did! Yadier Molina likes throwing people out in the same way you and I like breathing. And of course Profar was celebrating his base hit, because people celebrating base hits is what makes the WBC so delightful. As an event, it’s like NES Super Punch-Out but with actual live humans doing the taunting.

There are multiple angles of the sequence in question. Here are two of them:

The Netherlands would still go on to score that inning thanks to Wladimir Balentien’s two-run homer, but it’s hard not to note that it could have been a grand slam. Profar certainly isn’t failing to note that. As he told the Orange County Register: “I just want to put this loss on myself… I made that mistake. I think we paid for it.”

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Over the last couple of weeks, we published our annual season preview series by going position by position around the league. If you missed any of the posts, they can be accessed by that helpful widget up above. Today, we’re also going to summarize the results of the series. Let’s start by diving right into the results of the ordinal ranks, which we’ll break into three tables for easier digestion. Infield first!

There’s a reason we use projected value and not just average ranking by position when talking about a team’s strength, since the margins between ranks can be deceptive. But this also gives you a decent idea of the amount of balance a team has across positions, and right away, it’s hard not to notice the Astros. Not only are they at the top of both middle-infield lists, but they’re No. 5 on the catcher list, No. 10 on the third-base list, and No. 15 on the first-base list.

Houston projects to get average or better production at every infield spot, something that can also only be claimed by the Cubs, Dodgers, and Indians, three of the very best teams in baseball. The Giants are close to joining that group, with only third base falling a little bit short, and the Blue Jays would be in this mix if they had a real first baseman.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about a Carter Capps mimic, several recently released Effectively Wild favorites, a baseball use for trampolines, and Derek Jeter’s prolific publishing career, then answer listener emails about a different kind of fantasy league, a player who can see slightly into the future, speed vs. velocity, a home-run/strikeout pitcher, spring training intentional walks, breaking Old Hoss Radbourn’s record, magically missing bats, part-time Trout and Kershaw, and more.

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