Ben and Sam banter about mean-spirited nicknames, then answer emails about Kyle Schwarber’s bat, Jon Lester’s long con, the neglected White Sox drought, the Nationals’ 2016 “success,” overcoming bad broadcasters, paying to play in the World Series, and more.
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It may be impossible to believe after the last two games — after all the front-door sinkers thrown by Corey Kluber that turned the Cubs’ bats into mush and after a similar experience last night facilitated by his apprentice Trevor Bauer — but the front-door sinker is not a hot new trend in baseball.
First, to review: the front-door sinker is thrown from a pitcher of one hand to a hitter of the opposite one. The intention? Essentially, to fake the batter into not swinging. It’s a sinker thrown at the hip that then moves into the strike zone. Here’s an example from August Fagerstrom’s piece on Kluber this week:
Seems like a rad pitch. In the era of the swinging strike, it’s a pitch that’s designed to elicit a take. It relies on command in an era when we wonder if pitchers even have any command. After all, as I noted in my for last year’s Hardball Times Annual, the average pitcher misses the catcher’s target by more than 11 inches on a 3-0 count.
There’s a fundamental truth about the playoffs that everyone knows, but that’s also easy to forget. That is, the playoffs are selective for the best. They’re selective for the best baseball teams, and as a part of that, they’re selective for the best baseball throwers and the best baseball hitters. Come playoff time, it doesn’t matter so much that, say, the Cubs trounced all their opponents, because in the playoffs, everyone is at least pretty good. The quality of competition evens things out. Lineups are disproportionately good, but so are pitching staffs, and it can feel almost like a whole month of partially-diluted All-Star Games.
October selects for the best on-field product. But what about the on-field umpires? We know that umpires have to earn their way to gaining postseason responsibilities. We know it’s considered an honor to be an ump in the playoffs, as it should be. You’d think it would follow that the playoff strike zone would reflect this selection on the part of the league. As I look at it, the October zone does appear slightly different. But not in the direction of being better. Rather, it seems a little more pitcher-friendly.
Kyle Schwarber was the show, or at least the story, in last night’s Game Two of the World Series. After five plate appearances in April without a hit — followed by a six-month layoff that prevented him from facing even one major-league pitcher in a game situation — Schwarber has been up to the plate nine times on the biggest stage baseball has to offer. In those nine plate appearances, Schwarber has reached base safely more often than he hasn’t, and has yet to be retired when hitting the ball in play. Last night, his hits proved timely, producing the second and fourth runs for the Chicago Cubs as they evened a series that now heads back to Chicago. How has Cleveland approached him, and how has he responded?
It’s often said at the beginning of spring training that the pitchers are ahead of the hitters; batters don’t yet have their timing back and can have difficulty recognizing pitches. The chart below depicts all 40 pitches Schwarber has seen this postseason, color-coded by the result of the pitch. From Baseball Savant:
Of the 20 or so pitches clearly outside of the box above, Schwarber has offered at just three of them. Read the rest of this entry »
There are few people I know that like baseball as much as Jeff Sullivan. I’m continually jealous of the way he can see things that I can’t see in the game, spotting little details that make for fantastic stories, and engaging with aspects of the sport that most people gloss over. While some may like the history of the game, or the ability to parse all the information it provides, Jeff is one of those who you can say truly enjoys the game on the field.
With that said, here’s Jeff’s take on last night’s game, as he was live-blogging as it went down.
Jeff wasn’t just being grumpy. August Fagerstrom, who was at the game in person, said this in our postgame chat about who was covering what.
If Game Two of the 2016 World Series was a movie, it would have 0% on Rotten Tomatoes this morning. Even with Jake Arrieta carrying a no-hitter into the sixth inning, that was not a display of baseball at its best. This was a four hour and four minute contest that featured a grand total of six runs over nine innings, and Major League Baseball needs to spend some serious time trying to make sure that they don’t offer up many more games like that to the general public.
One of the biggest strikeouts in last night’s World Series Game Two came in the seventh inning when Carlos Santana swung through a curveball from Mike Montgomery. The Indians had two on and two out, and trailed 5-1. One swing of the bat would have brought them to within a run.
The curveball has been Montgomery’s secret to success. The 27-year-old lefty began featuring it prominently after coming to the Cubs from the Mariners in late July. His sinker has also became a primary weapon. His pitching coach, Chris Bosio, deserves much of the credit.
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the Arizona Diamondbacks farm system. Scouting reports are compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as from my own observations. The KATOH statistical projections, probable-outcome graphs, and (further down) Mahalanobis comps have been provided by Chris Mitchell. For more information on thes 20-80 scouting scale by which all of my prospect content is governed you can click here. For further explanation of the merits and drawbacks of Future Value, read this. -Eric Longenhagen
The KATOH projection system uses minor-league data and Baseball America prospect rankings to forecast future performance in the major leagues. For each player, KATOH produces a WAR forecast for his first six years in the major leagues. There are drawbacks to scouting the stat line, so take these projections with a grain of salt. Due to their purely objective nature, the projections here can be useful in identifying prospects who might be overlooked or overrated. Due to sample-size concerns, only players with at least 200 minor-league plate appearances or batters faced last season have received projections. -Chris Mitchell
Other Lists
NL West (ARI, COL, LAD, SD, SF)
AL Central (CHW, CLE, DET, KC, MIN)
NL Central (CHC, CIN, PIT, MIL, StL)
NL East (ATL, MIA, NYM, PHI, WAS)
AL East (BAL, BOS, NYY, TB, TOR)
| Rk | Name | Age | Highest Level | Position | ETA | FV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthony Banda | 23 | AAA | LHP | 2017 | 50 |
| 2 | Socrates Brito | 24 | MLB | OF | 2016 | 45 |
| 3 | Mitch Haniger | 25 | MLB | OF | 2016 | 45 |
| 4 | Jasrado Chisholm | 18 | R | SS | 2020 | 45 |
| 5 | Domingo Leyba | 21 | AA | 2B | 2018 | 40 |
| 6 | Anfernee Grier | 21 | A- | CF | 2019 | 40 |
| 7 | Taylor Clarke | 23 | AA | RHP | 2018 | 40 |
| 8 | Alex Young | 23 | A+ | LHP | 2018 | 40 |
| 9 | Wei-Chieh Huang | 23 | A+ | RHP | 2019 | 40 |
| 10 | Dawel Lugo | 21 | AA | 3B | 2018 | 40 |
| 11 | Jon Duplantier | 22 | A- | RHP | 2019 | 40 |
| 12 | Andy Yerzy | 18 | R | C | 2021 | 40 |
| 13 | Matt Koch | 25 | MLB | RHP | 2016 | 40 |
| 14 | Vicente Campos | 24 | MLB | RHP | 2016 | 40 |
| Age | 23 | Height | 6’3 | Weight | 175 | Bat/Throw | L/L |
|---|
| Fastball | Curveball | Changeup | Command |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55/55 | 55/55 | 45/50 | 40/50 |
Relevant/Interesting Metrics
Strikeout rate dropped from 17% to 13% after promotion to Triple-A, while walk rate held steady at 8.5%.
Scouting Report
The Diamondbacks drafted Banda out of high school in 2011. He didn’t sign, though, and then matriculated to JUCO powerhouse San Jacinto in Houston. The Brewers drafted and signed him the next year and Banda spent two years struggling in Rookie-level ball before the Diamondbacks acquired him in the Gerardo Parra deal (along with Mitch Haniger) in July of 2014. Banda took off after that, went to the Futures Game this year and had success at Triple-A in the hitter-friendly environs of Reno.
Potential rooting interests notwithstanding, last night’s World Series Game Two was pretty brutal, as far as World Series games go. It was a cold, wet, dreary night in Cleveland. One team’s win expectancy was greater than 90% by the fifth inning. It lasted more than four hours. The Indians made six pitching changes. The Cubs made more mound visits than pitches. Trevor Bauer started for Cleveland, and of his 87 pitches, just 53 were strikes. Jake Arrieta started for Chicago, and of his 98 pitches, just 55 were strikes.
Tough game to watch, all around. So, rather than dissect the game, let’s dissect Jake Arrieta’s postgame press conference. These things aren’t always very revealing, but in the spirit of the current political season, maybe some fact-checking can reveal some truths.
* * *
Q. You started off a little rocky and then you got it back. How did you turn it around?
JAKE ARRIETA: “Well, I think really controlling my effort is when I was able to get locked in. I kind of had my foot on the gas a little too much at the start, trying to do more than I needed to.”
The first pitch Arrieta threw was his hardest of the night! As easy as it can be to write off something like “I had to get locked in” as a ballplayer cliche, these are human beings who are prone to unintentional rushes of adrenaline, and this is, after all, the freaking World Series. Arrieta hit 95 on the first pitch of the night to Carlos Santana, and then never hit 95 again. He was all over the place in the first, throwing just 43% strikes, his lowest strike rate of any inning, and walking Francisco Lindor on four consecutive pitches with two outs. The adrenaline effect is real. It looks like it was real for Arrieta last night, and it may help explain part of his early-game troubles to command his pitches.
Q. You started off a little rocky and then you got it back. How did you turn it around?
JAKE ARRIETA (cont.): “Then I really got back to just executing good pitches towards the bottom of the strike zone. With the cutter going one way and the sinker going the other way, trying to be as aggressive as I could, and allow those guys to put the ball in play and let the defense work.”
In the first inning, 57% of Arrieta’s pitches were in the lower half of the zone or beyond. After that, it was 56%. The first-inning issue wasn’t necessarily leaving the ball up, but there’s a different between “pitches toward the bottom of the strike zone” and “good pitches toward the bottom of the strike zone.”
Lower-half pitches in the first:
After the first:
It’s tough to compare one inning to 4.2, but I think I’ll allow it. That really bad slider off the plate in the first didn’t come back. Those three middle-middle pitches didn’t come back. It seems like there’s a higher percentage of pitches catching the bottom edge of the zone.
Q. You started off a little rocky and then you got it back. How did you turn it around?
JAKE ARRIETA (cont.): “Then in the sixth, I think that maintaining a consistent feel and on a night like this with the weather the way it was can be tough. So I tried to keep the body warm and ready to go the best I could.”
Nope.
It was rainy, windy, and in the low-40s by a lake in Ohio. Wearing short sleeves is not how one tries to keep the body warm, you absolute madman.
Q. You mentioned the conditions, how did they affect your choices? And how would you compare tonight to that Game 2 you started in Citi Field last year?
JAKE ARRIETA: “Pretty similar, I would say. I think the temperature was probably close to what it was at Citi Field.”
Last night’s first-pitch temperature: 43 degrees, cloudy.
Last year’s first-pitch temperature: 45 degrees, partly cloudy.
Q. You mentioned the conditions, how did they affect your choices? And how would you compare tonight to that Game 2 you started in Citi Field last year?
JAKE ARRIETA (cont.): “I think keeping my hand as warm as I could in between innings to not lose feel in the fingertips, because for, not even just a starting pitcher, but for a pitcher, you want to have that consistent feel off your fingertips, especially on your breaking ball, to maintain consistency with how you execute those pitches.”
Arrieta may not have made the best life choice for keeping the body warm, but as far as keeping the hand warm, it seems like he did a fine job, because last night’s success had plenty to do with his breaking pitches. As our own Jeff Sullivan detailed back in late-August, a big part of Arrieta’s midseason skid had to do with his struggles against left-handed batters. This, coming on the heels of his excellent slider disappearing. Against lefties in 2015, Arrieta was able to paint the outer edge of the zone, back-dooring his breaking pitches in at the last second. During much of 2016, rather than starting his breaking pitches outside the zone and back-dooring them to the edge, he was too often starting them on the edge and moving them to the middle of the plate.
Last night, Arrieta threw 36 breaking balls to lefties out of 71 pitches — 51%, almost double his season rate. And here’s the location of those pitches to lefties:
Arrieta absolutely lived on the outer half of the plate, and you see all the purple in the bottom-left quadrant of the zone, indicating well executed back-door sliders, and enough light blue in the area, too, indicating those big, looping curves that catch the zone at the last second.
He was wild, but he managed to keep the walk total down, and he was wild out of the zone, rather than being wild with hittable mistake pitches. When Arrieta was able to find the zone, it was with pitches that stuck to the game plan, and with his movement, pitches that stick to the game plan are tough to square up.
And the press conference? Good. More insightful than most. Mostly truthful and supported by the evidence. I give it an 8/10. But, my God man, put on some sleeves.
It would’ve been the thrill of his life to play in his first-ever World Series game, but I don’t think Anthony Rizzo’s going to be telling many stories. Though just being there is an achievement in and of itself, Rizzo finished the game 0-for-4, and he popped up against Corey Kluber three consecutive times. Rizzo is a fly-ball hitter, but he’s not a pop-up hitter. Kluber made him uncomfortable. He made the lot of them uncomfortable. The Cubs were defeated, and I’m sure Rizzo doesn’t want to talk much about it.
But don’t confuse a lack of discussion for a lack of remembrance. Rizzo might not have been successful on Tuesday, but he did pick up on a tell. And he brought that information with him into Game 2, a somewhat sloppy affair the Cubs took 5-1. Rizzo, in the first inning, doubled home Kris Bryant while facing Trevor Bauer. By WPA, it was the most important play of the game, and even just in the moment, it got the Cubs on the World Series scoreboard. Rizzo’s two-strike double was a big one, and had it not been for the night before, it very well might not have happened.
