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The appeal of lists and rankings, whatever its cause, is very real. That thing you like? Sure, it’s good, but is it better than this other thing?! We’ve seen this carry over into baseball presumably since the sport began. Williams or DiMaggio? Aaron or Mays? Garciaparra or Jeter or Rodriguez? We’ve even clung to “Trout or Harper?” for as long as we possibly can. Whether this urge to create a clear hierarchy is good, that’s not for me to say, but it’s a tendency into which I’ve found myself constantly falling when thinking about one particular playoff team: the San Francisco Giants.

It goes without saying that the Giants are not in an enviable position. They’re down two games to none to the Cubs in the Division Series and their opponent is widely regarded as the best team in baseball on paper. But the Giants have been in a similar position before and come out alright, so it would be disingenuous to say they’re hopeless. Perhaps the biggest reason to maintain even a shred of hope that the Giants will fight back in the series is related to this fact: by at least one metric, the two best games pitched by a starter so far this postseason have been by Giants pitchers Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto.

Having two elite starting pitchers doesn’t guarantee postseason success for any team – one only needs look at the Texas Rangers for confirmation of that fact – but it’s also unequivocally beneficial. It may or may not be enough to help the Giants claw their way back in this series, especially considering Bumgarner and Cueto can only start two of the remaining three wins the Giants need. But it’s a situation that lends itself to an intriguing debate that I personally am incapable of avoiding — namely, the question of who’s better, Bumgarner or Cueto?

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On Saturday night, Javier Baez crushed a fastball from Santiago Casilla, hitting it to almost exactly the same spot he hit his game-winning home run on Friday night. Having hit the ball 102 mph at a 26 degree launch angle — balls with those characteristics were home runs 65% of the time this year — Baez dropped his head and started to jog towards first base. He didn’t really put it in top gear until he rounded first base and saw that the ball had hit the wall, and that there was going to be a play at second base. Once at full speed, he covered enough ground to beat the throw pretty easily, and dove in to second base before Joe Panik could apply the tag. He was easily called safe, and attention turned to his health, as he appeared to dive into Panik’s knee, and was suffering the consequences of the collision.

Two minutes and 49 seconds after the play had ended, however, Baez was called out. The Giants had challenged the call, as has become a custom for nearly every close tag play at second base, because it was possible that Baez not maintained contact with the bag during every millisecond of his slide into the base. So, the review umpires in New York re-evaluated the play, and saw this.

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Seeing as this is an article about Aroldis Chapman, I might be letting down my audience if I didn’t at least briefly discuss the most recent pitch Aroldis Chapman threw, considering what that most recent pitch was. The last pitch Aroldis Chapman threw in a game was a fastball, for a swinging strike — which, on its own, given our subject, is entirely unremarkable. The pitch went 103.3 mph, which is less remarkable for our subject than any other pitcher in baseball, but is fast even for Chapman’s standards. Most remarkable of all, the pitch moved like this:

To quickly play the role of Party Pooper, I have to point out that the way a catcher receives a pitch can sometimes play a trick on our eyes, deceiving us into believing a pitch had more movement than it actually did, and I think that’s at least somewhat at play here with Willson Contreras‘ stabbing motion, in concert with the pitch’s natural arm-side tail, creating an exaggerated illusion of how much this pitch actually broke.

That’s not to say the pitch wasn’t exceptional, even for Chapman. Despite my poo-pooing just a second ago, you might be able to make the case this is the most exceptional fastball Chapman’s ever thrown. The Cubs’ closer threw 15 fastballs in his save during Saturday’s 5-2 win over the Giants, and the 14 fastballs preceding the one depicted above averaged 4.6 inches of horizontal break. Chapman’s fastball, for the entire season, averaged 4.8 inches of horizontal break. This particular fastball, that final fastball, broke 9.3 inches to the arm side. It moved about twice as much as the average Chapman fastball.

Using BaseballSavant, I compiled a spreadsheet of every fastball Chapman’s thrown in his career — 5,161 pitches. I sorted them by horizontal movement. This one ranked 63rd. That’s not as sexy a result as first or second or even 10th, but it’s still in the 99th percentile. Also: at 103.3 mph, only two of the 62 fastballs with more horizontal break were also thrown as hard. Also also: those two pitches were both in the dirt. This one went for a swinging strike to end a playoff game. That’s how you make the argument this was the most exceptional fastball Aroldis Chapman has ever thrown.

For fun, I wanted to create an image. This image shows every fastball thrown by a left-handed pitcher in 2016, plotting velocity against horizontal movement, with all of Chapman’s pitches removed except the one in question. I find humor in this:

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Episode 688
Lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen is the guest on this edition of the pod, during which he discusses recent prep work on his horrible burden — namely, the forthcoming organizational prospect lists, which will begin with NL West clubs. By way of preview, Longenhangen discusses one prospect of note from each the five western teams: Jazz Chisholm (Arizona), Joan Gregorio (San Francisco), Michel Miliano (San Diego), Riley Pint (Colorado), and Jordan Sheffield (Los Angeles).

This episode of the program either is or isn’t sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

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.)

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Adam Eaton had an excellent defensive season in right field for the White Sox. The 27-year-old former centerfielder had 20 Defensive Runs Saved, the third most of any outfielder. His 22.1 UZR was second to none. He gives his teammates a lot of credit for those for those numbers.

“Metrics see it as individual effort, but it’s not,” opined Eaton. “The addition of Austin Jackson early in the season really helped. When he was in the outfield with me, I had complete confidence that my back was covered. I could be more aggressive to the gap. Same thing with (JB) Shuck. His speed and defensive ability allows me to make plays I wouldn’t otherwise make.

“Same thing with assists,” added Eaton, whose arm rating ranked as best in both leagues. “I can throw the ball as well as I want to, but if the guy cutting it off doesn’t make a perfect throw on the relay, I don’t get an assist. If the catcher doesn’t make a perfect catch, and make the tag on time, I don’t get an assist. Stats can’t see that. I’m happy that I look great in the metrics, but without the guys around me, I’m just another average ballplayer.” 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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Clayton Kershaw is starting Game 1 of the NLDS for the Dodgers, and that’ll be a welcome sight for a team that wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to make it back for the playoffs at all. There’s no replacing Kershaw’s presence, and there’s no replacing Kershaw’s stuff. When Kershaw returned from the disabled list, he brought his stuff. And it turns out he even brought something extra!

In a start against the Rockies, Kershaw twice dropped his arm slot. That wasn’t much, but it was something new, and I put something together on the subject. Kershaw was inspired to mess around by teammate/apparent superstar? Rich Hill, who’s made a habit of varying his looks. It turns out Kershaw used to throw from a lower slot in high school, so the twist didn’t come completely out of nowhere, but it was still worth wondering after that game whether Kershaw would re-visit the trick. It could’ve easily been a one-off.

We can say now the trick has been re-visited. Maybe it’ll be a two-off, but Kershaw dropped his arm five times in his last start against the Giants. This is now something for the Nationals to be aware of, and this is now something for you to look out for from home.

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