Prior to changing organizations, Anderson Espinoza would sometimes be compared to a young Pedro Martinez. From a projectability standpoint, it wasn’t far-fetched. Signed by the Red Sox out of Venezuela two years ago, Espinoza was lanky with long fingers, and he possessed advanced feel for his off-speed pitches. Last year in the Gulf Coast League his fastball flirted with triple digits.

Espinoza is 18 years old now, and in the Padres system. Acquired by San Diego from Boston at the trade deadline in exchange for Drew Pomeranz, the high-ceiling right-hander is currently pitching for the Fort Wayne TinCaps in the low-A Midwest League. The raw stuff remains, but his physical resemblance to Pedro is fading.

Espinoza has gained 22 pounds since last season — “a lot of working out and a lot of eating” — and he now weighs a solid 202 pounds. “A strong guy who can get even stronger,” he aspires to better maintain his velocity deep into games.

Espinoza recognizes the value of velocity, but it’s no longer a main focus. Read the rest of this entry »

Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Toronto at Cleveland | 19:10 ET
Sanchez (152.1 IP, 83 xFIP-) vs. Tomlin (137.0 IP, 98 xFIP-)
Arguments surrounding end-of-season awards tend to invite discourse of the least civil variety — as well as a perversion both of logic and rhetoric. The “race,” as it were, for the American League Cy Young award is notable, however, for its unlikely participants.

Regard, a table of the top AL pitchers this season by a combination of WAR (which is wins above replacement calculated with FIP) and RA9-WAR (which is WAR calculated with runs allowed per nine innings):

Of course, some of these pitchers — Hamels, Sale, even Kluber now — possess a reputation as ace-types. (Although, how one would define “ace-type,” this is undertain). The two best pitchers by this metric, however, are more novel. Jose Quintana, of course, was acquired by the White Sox after having been granted minor-league free agency. Sanchez, for his part, has regarded the strike zone as a mere suggestion until this season.

By these numbers, specifically, Quintana is the favorite. But there’s also a strong case to be made for Sanchez. He’s pitching tonight for the Blue Jays. It’s allowable to observe him do it.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Cleveland Radio.

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I first saw Jeff Hoffman pitch in February of 2014, when he was a junior at East Carolina, and thought I was seeing the guy who would later go first overall in that June’s draft. Hoffman was electric, sitting 92-96 mph, touching 98 and showing feel for four pitches on a chilly, late-winter’s day in Virginia. Best amateur slider I’ve ever seen aside, Hoffman was better than Carlos Rodon that spring in every way and likely would have demanded consideration for the top overall selection (which eventually became Brady Aiken) in a class full of prospects with question marks up top.

But Hoffman broke. He had Tommy John in May of 2014. It was the second year in a row (Lucas Giolito) that the draft’s most talented right-handed arm was injured. The situation was a precarious one for Hoffman. If the injury torpedoed his stock, it would be hard for him to thumb his nose at the team that drafted him and return to school because, even with an aggressive recovery from TJ, he’d only be able to make a couple of starts as a senior before the 2015 draft and maybe not pitch at all. Alas, the Blue Jays saw the opportunity to grab a top-three talent at pick #9 and signed him for slot value, $3.1 million.

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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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Episode 676
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio, he provides a summary of events from Saberseminar 2016, explains the logic of the Blue Jays’ front-office turnover despite that club’s considerable recent success, and meditates briefly on the absurdity of revocable waivers.

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 47 min play time.)

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Dave Righetti was a good pitcher. In a 16-year career spent mostly with the New York Yankees, he threw a no-hitter and saved over 250 games. He might be an even better pitching coach. “Rags” has held that position with the San Francisco Giants since 2000, and in the opinion of many, he’s among the best in the business.

Righetti’s reputation is well deserved. Under his tutelage, Giants pitchers have made 22 All-Star teams, won two Cy Young awards, and thrown five no-hitters. More importantly, the club has gone to the World Series four times and captured three titles.

Righetti talked about his philosophies — and the repertoires and pitch selection of members of the Giants’ staff — when the team visited Fenway Park in July.

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Righetti on location and changing speeds: “Changing speeds on any pitch is essential, even if it’s a 95-mph fastball. If you can’t back off on it at times and throw it 90, people are going to time it out. The last thing you want to do is throw your hardest fastball every pitch.

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When Willson Contreras began to shoot up prospects lists last year, it wasn’t because of his defense. The now-24-year-old third baseman-turned-catcher was a fringe prospect who had never cracked a top-100 list until he came out of nowhere to slash .333/.413/.478 in Double-A last season — his fourth year spent behind the dish. Contreras’ breakout at the plate began earning him recognition from scouts, as Baseball America, ESPN, Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com all ranked Contreras as a top-75 prospect coming into this season. Regarding his work behind the dish, however, questions remained.

BP’s Christopher Crawford called Contreras a “work in progress” behind the plate in this year’s preseason scouting report, adding that “receiving is the big focus point right now, as he’s still learning how to frame pitches and call games.” Baseball America made note of Contreras’ “inconsistent receiving and blocking skills that need more development.” Most every scouting report on Contreras echoed a similar sentiment: great athleticism for a catcher, cannon for an arm, but the receiving and blocking needed work. Receiving is far and away the most important defensive skill for a catcher to possess, and so Contreras’ development (or lack thereof) in this area would go a long way toward determining his long-term value, or even future, behind the plate.

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Here’s the good news: the Texas Rangers have the best record in the American League and a seven-game division lead. Here’s the less-good news: our playoff projections give them roughly one-in-10 odds of relinquishing their division lead before the end of the season due, in part, to the worst rest-of-season winning percentage projection of any current first-place team. One of the primary reasons projection systems are down on the Rangers relative to other first-place teams is that they’ve struggled with run prevention this season and a key cause of that struggle has been their difficulty filling out a five-man rotation with healthy, reliable starting pitching. However, the top of their rotation features a stealth Cy Young candidate in a weak field, Cole Hamels, and an ace who is increasingly looking like another Tommy John success story: Yu Darvish.

Since rejoining the rotation for good after the All-Star break, Darvish has been among the best pitchers in the American League on the strength of a 2.70 ERA, 3.32 RA9 and a major-league-leading 28.0-point strikeout- and walk-rate differential (K-BB%). But one of the most encouraging things to see with Darvish is that he’s been able to go deep into games. It wasn’t until his most recent two starts that he crossed the 95-pitch threshold this year, and yet he’s currently riding an active six-game streak of going six innings or more in his starts. Things have been going extraordinarily well of late for Darvish and it’s worth taking a look at what has and hasn’t changed for Darvish and whether or not he’s truly “back.”

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Yesterday, Kris Bryant did what he’s best known for; hit the crap out of the baseball. In the Cubs 9-6 victory over the Brewers, Bryant went 5 for 5 with a double and a pair of home runs, giving him 30 homers for the season. The big day raised his season line to .296/.392/.564 and pushed him up to a 152 wRC+, second in the NL, behind only Daniel Murphy. This isn’t exactly breaking news, but Kris Bryant can really hit.

But Kris Bryant is also really good at a bunch of other things that don’t get as much attention, and given his monstrous production yesterday, I thought it would be a good time to talk about all the other reasons why Kris Bryant might be the best all-around player in the National League.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by sabermetric nobleman Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
Boston at Detroit | 19:10 ET
Porcello (158.0 IP, 93 xFIP-) vs. Fulmer (120.0 IP, 87 xFIP-)
Red Sox hitters who aren’t also otherwise employed as pitchers have produced a collective 116 wRC+ this year, the best such mark in the majors. “How does that compare to other clubs over the last half decade?” a reasonably curious person might ask. Better than the 2013 Red Sox, is the answer. But not as good as the 2011 Cardinals, though. And not as good as the 2011 Red Sox, either. But better than the 2013 Tigers. But less good than last year’s Blue Jays.

It’s the fifth-best mark, is another version of the answer. Another, more succinct version.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Detroit Radio.

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