With the extended holiday weekend behind us, we get back to the business at hand: our position-by-position look at hitter contact quality. Only three positions to go. Last time, it was left fielders. This time: a fun-filled group of center fielders. As we have in the previous installments, we’ll use granular ball-in-play data, such as BIP type frequencies, exit speed and launch angle to perform this analysis.
The Royals line-up has been crushed by injuries this year, with Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain both spending chunks of time on the DL, and Mike Moustakas lost for the season due to a torn ACL. Today, the injury bug is apparently moving over to the pitching side of things too.
Wade Davis is going on the disabled list with a right forearm strain. Brooks Pounders is being called up.
— Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) July 5, 2016
On a superficial level, Davis has seemed fine this year, running a 1.23 ERA and converting 19 of 21 save opportunities. But this news probably shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, because there have been some lingering red flags for a while now.
Davis struck out just seven of the 40 batters he faced in June, a remarkably low total for a guy who has been one of the most dominant relievers in baseball for the last few years. Interestingly, though, the other traditional red flag associated with pitcher injuries — velocity decline — has actually not been an issue for Davis. In fact, his velo has been trending up all season.
Of course, the upwards trend is mostly him getting back to where he threw the last few years, as his velocity was down a lot in April and May, so velocity decline was an issue earlier. It’s a bit odd that his strikeouts are disappearing at the same time his velocity is coming back, but given the existence of both issues within the first four months, the fact that he’s headed to the DL makes plenty of sense.
For the Royals, this is a pretty big loss, as Davis has been the anchor of their bullpen, which is really the only thing keeping them in contention at this point. The team has had the worst starting rotation in the AL this season, and their offense isn’t anything special. Without Davis, the team will likely have to shift Kelvin Herrera into the closer role, weakening the team’s middle relief significantly, and they might have a tough time winning as many close games as they have become accustomed to.
Given that the All-Star break is coming up, it is possible that the Royals are just using this timing to give Davis a bit of an extended break — this keeps him from going to San Diego, after all — and perhaps the issue won’t be a long-term concern. But forearm tightness is often a precursor to Tommy John surgery, and if the Royals lose Davis for an extended period, it will be a big blow to their chances to get back to the postseason.
After a promising start to the season, the Red Sox pitching staff is starting to again resemble the disaster that sank the 2015 season. Over the last two weeks, the starting rotation has put up a 6.89 ERA, as David Price‘s disappointing debut season in Boston has continued, Steven Wright’s knuckleball-magic has started to show signs of wearing off, and Clay Buchholz and Eduardo Rodriguez just took turns throwing batting practice. The Red Sox continue to hit well enough to stay in contention, but with the pitching staff imploding once again, even the team’s manager is admitting that it’s “obvious” that the pitching needs upgrading. Despite a thin supply of available arms, it seems pretty clear that Dave Dombrowski is going to be among the most active executives in scouring the market for a starting pitcher over the next month.
But as the team looks to load up for a playoff push, there’s a case to be made that the Red Sox biggest move this summer should be to add another bat to the line-up instead.
| 11:53 |
: Nearly forgot I had this! Week of vacation plus a Monday holiday has me all screwed up. Let’s start around 12:10.
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| 12:12 |
: Alright! Let’s do it
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| 12:12 |
: Hello, friend!
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| 12:12 |
: Hi, Bork!
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| 12:13 |
: I might be biased but was the Indians/Jays game the other day the worst example of the umpshow this year? Carapazza was straight up awful.
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| 12:13 |
: It was really bizarre. I’m not sure about “Ump show” — every Blue Jays player that was thrown out deserved it. But it’d be hard not to get thrown out with the calls they were dealing with
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Over the weekend, the Cubs called up third baseman Jeimer Candelario to replace the injured Chris Coghlan on the roster. Candelario enjoyed a breakout season last year, when he hit .277/.339/.431 as a 21-year-old between High-A and Double-A. He carried some of that success over to 2016 by hitting .249/.359/.428 between Double-A and Triple-A this year. This included a beastly .333/.452/.600 in his 25 game pit stop at Triple-A.
Candelario’s offensive game is largely centered around doubles and walks. He laced 24 doubles in 81 minor-league games this year and walked in an impressive 14% of his trips to the plate. On the downside, he didn’t make a tremendous amount of contact in the high minors, which suggests he may struggle against big-league pitching. His 19% strikeout rate from this year is fine, but you’d like to see a little more bat-to-ball ability from someone with merely OK power numbers.
It still seems like something of a mystery, how Bartolo Colon gets away with doing what he does. I mean, yeah, he throws a lot of fastballs, but they’re different types of fastballs. He’s also got impeccable command, and he understands the art of pitching to the point where he’s literally out there using the wind to his advantage. That all makes sense. But it’s still hard to fathom that a 43-year-old who pipes an 89-mph heater right down the middle on seemingly every pitch is now on year five of a career resurgence after effectively being out of the league at age 33.
Aroldis Chapman? Aroldis Chapman’s easy. Wanna know how Aroldis Chapman does what he does? Well, you see, he throws a baseball 103 mph. That’s it! Throw a baseball 103 mph one time and I can almost guarantee you that you will pitch in the big leagues. Chapman can do that, and he can do other stuff, too.
On the surface, there’s almost nothing similar about these guys. Colon’s 43 and he throws right-handed. Chapman’s 28 and he throws left-handed. Colon’s a starter, short and stocky. Chapman, a reliever, tall and lanky. From 2010 to -15, Colon struck out 17% of his batters and walked just 4%. Chapman over that same time struck out 43% and walked 12%. Polar opposites, these two.
The one thing at which Chapman has ever been below average is the walks; when he got in trouble, it’s because he wasn’t putting the ball over the plate. Putting the ball over the plate just so happens to be Colon’s biggest strength. It also just so happens to be the area where Chapman’s changed this year — he’s turned himself into a flamethrowing Bartolo Colon.
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
Seattle at Houston | 20:10 ET
Walker (82.0 IP, 91 xFIP-) vs. Keuchel (107.0 IP, 84 xFIP-)
On Opening Day, Houston possessed a 68% probability of qualifying for the postseason in some form. Following a poor start, that figure had dropped to 18% by May 23rd. Now, after a much less poor interval, the Astros’ playoff odds are above 50% again. Is this like or not like Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill for all eternity?
The author will take his answer off the air.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston or Seattle Radio.
Baseball fans’ brains are littered with obscure names and trivia. We all know names like Wally Pipp, Fred Merkle, and Johnny Vander Meer for their rather absurd places in baseball history. Five of those baseball names that may or may not be stuck in your brain for trivial reasons are: Freddy Garcia, Jamie Moyer, Gil Meche, Joel Pineiro, and Ryan Franklin. If that quintet is meaningful to you, it’s because every single game of the 2003 Mariners season was started by one of those pitchers.
In the modern era of five-man rotations, that team was the only one ever to get through an entire season without once turning to a sixth starter. It’s a trivial feat, but one that I find myself wondering year after year whether it will ever be repeated. Now that we’re halfway through the 2016 season, it’s time to assess the situation and determine whether or not this will be year of the second immaculate five-man rotation.
One-in-five teams have already used 10 or more starters this season and only two teams are left standing in my personal race to a perfect five-starter season: the Cubs and the Cardinals. Can either team match the 2003 Mariners?
Sam and Craig talk to Russell Carleton and Kate Morrison about their recent series covering the complexion of MLB’s front offices.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
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| 2:02 |
: Happy Independence Day, everyone. Put down that M80 and come talk about baseball for an hour.
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| 2:03 |
: With the influx of position talent, in particular Kevin Maitan, how do you think the Braves’ farm system stacks up against the rest of the league?
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| 2:03 |
: I thought it was baseball
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| 2:03 |
: I thought it was baseball’s best entering the seasons and still think it’s the best.
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| 2:03 |
: Who would you say is the closest to being untouchable in a trade with the Giants? Arroyo ?
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| 2:03 |
: If I’m calling the shots there, the last guy I’m parting with is Fox.
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