Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Dylan Cease trade, the post-trade outlooks for the Padres and White Sox, and the incomparably chaotic Padres POBO A.J. Preller, then (31:22) discuss who the best pitcher in baseball is with Gerrit Cole on the shelf, Shohei Ohtani’s wife reveal (41:33), and (49:34) ESPN’s planned on-screen win probability graphic on Sunday Night Baseball. Finally (1:01:58), they draft (or at least list) their favorite trades and signings of the winter.
I saw Dylan Cease’s start on Monday night and wanted to pass along some notes and video of him following his trade to the Padres. I also wanted to share fresh spring notes on the new White Sox prospects acquired yesterday. Let’s start with Cease. Here is my video from his unbroadcast start:
Almost all professional baseball players played at least one other sport growing up. Moreover, many of them were athletically gifted at a young age and thus excelled against their school-age contemporaries in their formative years, often all the way through high school. Fast forward to today, and many continue to play other sports in a recreational capacity — golf is prominent — especially in the offseason.
Watching other sports is also popular activity for ballplayers. Much as they tuned in to see their favorites on the family TV, they now do so as adults. Like the rest of us, they enjoy sitting on their couches, or hanging out with friends at sports bars, rooting for successful shots, goals, and touchdowns. Temporarily apart from the game they get paid to play, they get to be fans.
With those things in mind, I asked a dozen players about their “other” sport. Besides baseball, what did they most enjoy playing, and what do they now most enjoy watching?
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Dansby Swanson, Chicago Cubs shortstop: “Basketball. I was pretty good. I could really shoot. My basketball game was somewhat similar to my baseball game. I kind of did the right things. I knew what to do. I knew where to go. I averaged around 15 points in high school. It was [a big school]. We had over 2,000 kids. There are a lot of big schools in Georgia.
“I grew up in very much a sports family. I love watching all sports, honestly. I love watching football. I love watching basketball. Obviously, I watch a lot of soccer; I watch my wife [Mallory Swanson, who plays for the Chicago Red Stars and the U.S. Women’s National Team]. Golf is on the TV. An underrated sport to watch is tennis. I have sports on TV all the time.”
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Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels center fielder: “I played basketball and football throughout high school. I’d probably say that basketball was my best other sport. I was a small forward and an OK player. Read the rest of this entry »
There are so many great defenders in the majors right now. In the infield, there are elite shortstops, like Francisco Lindor and Dansby Swanson. In the outfield, there are the dudes who don’t let anything drop, such as Brenton Doyle and Harrison Bader. But none of these players are projected to lead baseball in Def, according to ZiPS. That title belongs to San Francisco Giants catcher Patrick Bailey.
Last year, Bailey led all players in Def with 26.8 runs. On the Statcast side of things, he was second in Fielding Run Value with +18, behind Doyle. He is unquestionably one of the most valuable defenders in the game, and much of that is due to his elite framing. He accumulated +16 framing runs and recorded a 52.9% strike rate – both the highest marks in baseball.
If you look at the Statcast framing leaderboard, you’ll notice one color for Bailey: red. He is above average in all nine parts of the shadow zone. That is simply unheard of. Typically, for catchers to be elite in one area, they tend to sacrifice another part of the zone. Take Adley Rutschman, for example. He is elite at the top of the zone but slightly below average at the bottom. Sean Murphy has the opposite tendency. He steals at the bottom while losing some at the top. Bailey is a departure from the norm. He can steal strikes in any part of the zone without sacrificing elsewhere.
That’s an impressive skill that made Bailey stand out last season. It’s also the exact kind of statistical quirk that warrants a video deep dive to uncover how he does it. Before jumping in, let’s discuss the two things we’ll be paying attention to here: Bailey’s pre-pitch stances and glove turns. To be this efficient around the strike zone, catchers not only have to have multiple stances, but they also have to know when to use them. By understanding their pitching staff and their movement profiles, they know when to deploy what stance and how to best use their hands.
The following clips will display how Bailey switches up his approach depending on the pitcher and/or location. Let’s start with Logan Webb – the sinkerballer and command artist:
Sinker
Where Bailey sets up behind the plate dictates his stance. He favors his inside knee down most of the time, but there is some variance depending on the pitcher and pitch. More so than when he is catching other pitchers, he has no problem setting up closer to the edges of the plate for Webb.
The key difference between the two sinkers is how he uses his glove turn in preparation for the pitch. On the arm side sinker, he uses more of a straight down quarter turn. Whereas with the glove side sinker, you’ll notice a more deliberate rounded turn. As a catcher, matching the plane of the pitch leads to the smoothest reception. If you don’t alter the rotation of your glove as you catch the ball, it appears as natural as possible to the umpire, resulting in a better chance at a strike call. Bailey has a perfect understanding of this, which can also be seen when he receives sliders:
Slider
On the arm side, it’s pretty standard. The glove side is where the quarter turn sticks out. Pushing a breaking ball back toward the middle of the plate can often look forced. But if a catcher is already tracing that movement before he receives the ball, it appears natural and can lead to stolen strike calls. Additionally, Bailey’s ability to switch which leg is down lets him be as loose as possible with his movements after the pitch is released. This allows him to smoothly shift his positioning to ensure that he catches the pitch closer to the center of his body, which makes it look more like a strike to the umpire.
While the one-knee catching stance has swept through the league, it’s still not common for catchers to switch from knee to knee as often as Bailey does. It puts him in a better position to handle pitches coming in from different angles. When a catcher has his inside knee up, that leg can sometimes make it difficult for him to reach across his body. Since Bailey almost always has his inside knee down for horizontal moving pitches, that’s not a concern. But there are some situations in which Bailey will alter this approach, such as when Webb throws his changeup:
Changeup
He switched from his typical stance, with his outside knee up, when catching the changeup with the lefty-hitting Jonah Heim at the plate. Bailey is most likely more comfortable putting his right knee up when Webb throws his changeup because that pitch doesn’t get much horizontal movement, and his glove turn probably feels more natural when he has space on his glove side. However, he is forced to switch his stance when there is a runner on first and second base is vacant because he can’t make throws with his left knee down. But that isn’t an issue for him, because he is comfortable flipping his stance.
Now, let’s see how Bailey handles Camilo Doval, whose arsenal — 100 mph rising cutters, 98 mph sinkers, 90 mph sliders — is completely different than Webb’s repertoire. Bailey knows that, so he takes a slightly different approach:
There are a few things to note here. First, Bailey gets in a lower stance with the slider coming and a runner on third, which puts him in a better position to block anything in the dirt. His low glove turn also prepares him to either flip his mitt over to get into a blocking stance or quickly shift it for a backhand pick. With high velocity sliders, a pick can often be more effective than a traditional chest block because there isn’t much time for a catcher to drop to his knees and get in front of the pitch. Meanwhile, Bailey hardly moves his glove in preparation for the cutter. Doval probably needs the high target for a visual marker, and an exaggerated glove turn isn’t needed for high pitches anyways.
Watching Bailey handle all types of high pitches is one of his best skills as a framer. No matter if it’s a heater or breaker, he knows when to attack pitches and when to be more patient. Doval’s cutter is one example of that, but the way he receives high sinkers and high sweepers perfectly displays that dichotomy:
Sinkers
Sweepers
Since Bailey sets up on the edges, it’s important his glove gets to the spot where the sinkers are going before they arrive, so long as that location is within the width of his shoulders. Anything outside of his frame will clearly look like a ball to an umpire, and the whole point of framing is to be inconspicuous. So when he’s expecting a backdoor sinker from Taylor Rogers (top left), he receives the pitch in the middle of his body while slightly pointing his shoulders toward the batter, Corbin Carroll. The pitch was out of the zone but appeared right on the edge because of how Bailey presented it. On the pitch from Alex Wood (top right), Bailey knows to keep his posture high and eyes over the squared bunt. That lets him beat the pitch from going too far out of the zone while giving the umpire a clear look at it. It was a great mid-pitch adjustment that led to another strike on a borderline pitch.
His approach to sweepers is much more patient. This is a pitch that will keep moving as long as the catcher lets it. If it starts out of the zone, letting it travel as much as possible gives it a better chance to scratch the edge of the plate. Even if the pitch passes the plate out of the zone – like against Randal Grichuk (bottom left) – the catcher can let it get deep enough so that it still looks like a strike when he catches it behind the plate. This is a good time to refocus on Bailey’s stances. It’s more difficult for a catcher to let these pitches travel with his leg or knee in the way. Keeping the inside knee down lets him adjust his upper body as needed while giving his arm the space it needs to move freely. The more space for smooth movement, the better prepared he is to let the pitch get deeper into the zone.
It’s hard to consistently do what Bailey does when it comes to switching stances. Not all players have the mobility on both sides of their body. On top of that, Bailey demonstrates an advanced understanding of pitch movement and matching planes with glove turns no matter who is one the mound. It’s the full pitch framing package. With a full season of work, I’m excited to see how much defensive value Bailey can bring. We could be in store for one of the best defensive seasons in recent memory.
After a pair of runner-up finishes in 2019 and ’21, Gerrit Cole finally won a Cy Young Award last year, but it doesn’t look like he’ll become the first American League pitcher to repeat since Pedro Martinez in 1999–2000. On Wednesday, the New York Post’s Jon Heyman reported that the 33-year-old righty will miss at least one to two months of the regular season due to an elbow issue, and is heading to Los Angeles for an in-person consultation with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, one of the industry’s top orthopedic surgeons — a move that has fueled speculation his injury could be even worse. At the very least, the loss of Cole exposes the Yankees’ lack of rotation depth and jeopardizes their chances of returning to the playoffs after missing out in 2023.
In one of the most nerve-wracking days in recent Yankees history, the team sent both Cole and Aaron Judge — two players making a combined $76 million in 2024 — for an MRI on Monday. The slugger had been experiencing discomfort in his abdominal area, which he believes stems from work he did over the offseason to correct his mechanics in the wake of his right big toe injury. He got a clean bill of health and expects to return to the lineup this weekend. As for the ace, his difficulties in recovering from his starts sent him to the MRI tube. Said manager Aaron Boone, “He described it as his recovery before getting to his next start has been more akin to what he feels during the season when he’s making 100 pitches… When he’s throwing 45 and 55, he usually doesn’t have the recovery issues he’s having.”
The exact nature of Cole’s diagnosis has yet to be reported, only that he’s experienced inflammation and “a twinge in his elbow.” It’s not uncommon for a team to get input from multiple doctors and have a player undergo additional tests, such as a dye contrast MRI to get a better look before determining a course of action; at the very least, Cole reportedly had x-rays and a CT scan on Tuesday. As this has played out, the high stakes and the Yankees’ opacity in handling the extended absences of Judge, Anthony Rizzo, Carlos Rodón, Luis Severino and other players in recent years has fed into a cottage industry that presumes cover-ups and worst-case scenarios. That Boone and general manager Brian Cashman have sometimes downplayed initial concerns ahead of prolonged outages in such cases has further fanned those flames. Read the rest of this entry »
Just like always, everyone in the room had offered an opinion. The December 2022 move the Royals were discussing was hardly a blockbuster – right-handed reliever Wyatt Mills to the Red Sox for relief prospect Jacob Wallace – but the process leading up to it was still time-tested and thorough. One by one, members of the Kansas City brain trust chimed in with their thoughts. Then, they turned toward Royals general manager J.J. Picollo.
Three months earlier, with the previous season winding down, the Royals had dismissed longtime GM Dayton Moore and elevated Picollo after years as Moore’s top deputy. Small as it was, the Mills-Wallace deal was to be the first of his administration. He’d been in that room for countless trade discussions and he’d listened as each department in baseball operations weighed in. Except now, the final say was his and his alone.
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the latest on Gerrit Cole’s elbow and how his uncertain status might affect free agents Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, then preview the 2024 Houston Astros (23:42) with The Athletic’sChandler Rome, and the 2024 Oakland (for now?) Athletics (1:12:15) with The Athletic’s Melissa Lockard.
You truly cannot make this stuff up. Back in December, the Padres were involved in the biggest trade of the offseason, sending Juan Soto to the Yankees in return for a heaping helping of pitching prospects. It’s the kind of trade you make when you’ve missed out on your goal, a classic attempt to turn a bad situation into an OK one. When you trade one of the best handful of players in baseball for some dudes most people outside of New York have never heard of, it’s fairly easy to guess your team’s trajectory.
But, uh, don’t tell A.J. Preller that. On Wednesday, the Padres made their second blockbuster of the winter, this one headed in the opposite direction: They acquired Dylan Cease from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for Drew Thorpe, Jairo Iriarte, Samuel Zavala, and Steven Wilson, as Mark Feinsand first reported.
This is wild stuff. It’s so hard to get a player like Soto on your team; if you have him, and you’re trying to make the playoffs, there’s almost never a good reason to move him. If you do move him, you’re probably rebuilding, though, not turning around and using one of those same prospects you got in the first deal to add a new star. The Padres, man. Read the rest of this entry »
Every team heads into spring training with The Plan for their roster. February is a time to dream about what could be, as new offseason acquisitions mix with the holdovers in camp. Then the reality of March settles in, spring injuries start to mount and The Plan is suddenly compromised or needs to be thrown completely out the window. For the Mariners, The Plan for their bullpen included some combination of Andrés Muñoz, Matt Brash, and Gregory Santos locking down the final few innings of any game they were leading. Unfortunately, the latter two of those three relievers are now dealing with injury issues that will keep them from being ready come Opening Day.
Brash had been dealing with elbow inflammation this spring after making more appearances (78) than any other reliever in baseball last year. Thankfully, surgery isn’t on the table yet, but the M’s are taking an understandably cautious approach to a key member of their ‘pen. Santos ended last season on the injured list due to an elbow issue and showed up in Arizona this spring with a sore shoulder. He had just started to ramp up his throwing program when he strained his lat on Tuesday. It doesn’t appear to be a serious issue, but it’s another setback for a pitcher who appeared to be a key offseason acquisition. In addition to losing Brash and Santos to start the season, Seattle’s bullpen depth took a hit when Jackson Kowar was diagnosed with a UCL tear last week; he will undergo Tommy John surgery, sidelining him until 2025.
To provide some insurance for their sudden lack of high-leverage options, Seattle signed Ryne Stanek to a one-year, $4 million deal on Friday. A setup man for the Astros over the last three years, Stanek compiled a solid 2.90 ERA during that time, though his 3.91 FIP wasn’t as pretty thanks to a very high walk rate. Still, his 27% strikeout rate and elite stuff allow him to be effective despite all the traffic on the basepaths. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday, I dove into Kevin Gausman’s fast and furious two-strike fastball approach. Last season, Gausman led the majors in terms of the velocity gap between his normal fastballs and his two-strike offerings, and he prospered with that approach. In 2022, however, he had the same juicy gain in velocity and was one of the worst pitchers in baseball with two strikes.
In that article, I mused that it was really difficult to know what pitchers were doing differently with two strikes. Short of using a stuff model, I said, trying to figure out relative pitch quality between two-strike fastballs and their early-count brethren wouldn’t work. Then I had an epiphany. We have a stuff model. We have two, in fact, one of which is entirely in-house. So like a kid asking for the keys to the candy store, I went to David Appelman and asked if I could get pitch-by-pitch stuff grades.
Now I have those! It turns out that running a giant data-focused baseball website comes with access to a tremendous amount of baseball data. I pulled every four-seam fastball thrown in 2023 and broke them into two categories for every player: two-strike counts and all other counts. Read the rest of this entry »
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