Ben and Sam banter about the most popular picks in BP’s “Beat PECOTA” game, then discuss Rich Hill, the Cubs’ strong start, Ray Searage’s promising pupils, and more.
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When Chris Colabello’s first ball in play this season, a line drive with a recorded exit velocity of 103 mph, went directly into the glove of opposing shortstop Brad Miller, it seemed a cruel yet fitting reminder that nothing is given at the start of a new season.
Not even for Colabello, who appears to have used a strong 2015 season to finally lock down a secure job in the major leagues. He produced offense at a level 42% above league average last year when controlling for park factors, and he did so for a playoff team, eventually forcing his way into more than the short side of a platoon with Justin Smoak. He’s not set to play every day for the Toronto Blue Jays this year, but he should have the larger share of a time-split at first.
He appears to have, at long last, made it. Assuming he can keep it up, that is, which few think is a certainty. For most of his baseball career, people have been looking for reasons why Colabello won’t succeed, even now that he’s doing so.
| 11:49 |
: Hello!
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| 11:50 |
: Quick programming note: I’m in the process of moving, and very shortly someone is coming to my apartment to buy my dining room table and chairs. Due to that, we may get this thing going a few minutes late today. Apologies
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| 11:51 |
: In the meantime, listen to MF DOOM:
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| 12:28 |
: OK!
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| 12:28 |
: Table: sold
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| 12:28 |
: Will chat for an hour starting now
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Bryce Harper’s at-bats have become events. Maybe more so than any other player in baseball, a Harper at-bat is the kind of thing that you set an alert for on MLB.TV so you can switch over to the Nationals’ feed when he comes up. He averaged more than four pitches per plate appearance last year, so you’re probably getting your money’s worth, and the allure of seeing a baseball hit 450 to center is ever present. A Harper at-bat is a spectacle, not only because of the raw power, but because of the craft.
I was one of those people keeping tabs on each Harper at-bat yesterday, except this time it wasn’t because I was enticed by the power. This time, it was because I wanted to see if he’d strike out. He did. Which is a pretty normal thing for baseball players to do. Except this time, it was noteworthy, because Harper hadn’t yet struck out this year. Entering the game, he was just one of two qualified hitters to have not yet K’d, and the other was Melky Cabrera, who never K’s. Cabrera’s offensive game is built around putting the bat on the ball, without much care for authority. Harper is all about authority, and it’s already been on display, which makes his strikeout-averse start to the season feel like it means more than Cabrera’s.
Harper went 21 plate appearances into the season without being sat down on strikes, a streak which lasted four games and then some. Last year, he only went four games without a strikeout once, and never beyond that. Last year’s streak lasted 22 place appearances. There was a 22-plate-appearance run in 2013. He didn’t set any personal records — though if you want to get technical, you could extend back to last year and say he actually went 28 consecutive plate appearances without a whiff — but it also means the first we’ve seen of Harper this year is, in this one particular way, Harper at his best. For a 23-year-old coming off a historic MVP season, that’s fun, because we spent the offseason wondering what he’d do next. Maybe it’s “never strike out.”
Last week, the Astros’ Dallas Keuchel and the Yankees’ Masahiro Tanaka faced off on Opening Day in New York. The first Opening Day was pushed back a day because of wintry weather. This day was no different, with a 36-degree first-pitch temperature and 18 mph wind. The next day, I ran my daily velocity report and both of the above names were on the list of starters who’d exhibited huge velocity drops. Keuchel was down 2.5 mph and Tanaka was down 2.3 mph. By running a quick study, I found that colder weather does have a fairly dramatic effect on pitcher velocity.
To find the data, I ran a query using the PITCHf/x database. For the years 2008 to 2015, I compared average velocity from a game which started at 40 degrees or less and the average from the rest of their games. The average change in velocity was -0.95 mph, with a median value of -0.92 mph. A pitcher throwing in a cold game should expect some velocity decline.
Note: Reader yaboynate quickly pointed out that the drop because it is early in the season. I change the query around a bit, and found the average and median change to -0.58 mph. Now the rest of April would be colder and the whole month is lower to start with.
Here are how the velocity changes were distributed.
| Velocity Change | # of Pitchers | % Change |
| > 2 mph | 3 | 0.7% |
| 1 to 2 mph | 17 | 3.7% |
| -1 to 1 mph | 221 | 48.3% |
| -2 to -1 mph | 136 | 30.0% |
| < -2 mph | 81 | 17.7% |
| Total | 458 | 100% |
Well, the cold weather definitely limits any upside and almost half the pitchers in the sample experienced a 1 mph loss — with one in every eight experiencing a 2 mph loss relative to the rest of the season. The differences shrink as the games warm up. From 40 to 50 degrees, the gap is around -0.6 mph; from 50 to 60 degrees, around -0.4 mph.
So, it’s simple: when looking at early season velocity declines, look at game temperatures. Part of the reason for the decline could be attributed to the cold weather.
Baseball can be slow to change. We’ve had this idea for decades that certain pitch types have platoon splits, and that you should avoid them in certain situations because of it. Righties, don’t throw sliders to lefties! It’s Baseball 101.
Think of the changeup, too. “Does he have a changeup?” or some variation on the theme is the first question uttered of any prospect on the way up. It’s shorthand for “can he be a starter?” because we think of changeups as weapons against the opposite hand. A righty will need one to get lefties out and turn the lineup over, back to the other righties, who will be dispatched using breaking balls.
As with all conventional wisdom, this notion of handedness and pitch types should be rife for manipulation. Say you could use your changeup effectively against same-handed hitters, for example. You could have a fastball/changeup starter that was equally effective against both hands, despite the history of platoon splits on the pitch.
To the innovators go the spoils. And we’re starting to see some innovators.
With Danny Santana headed to the disabled list, the Twins have recalled outfielder Max Kepler from Triple-A. Kepler figures to slot in as the team’s fourth outfielder, backing up Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano and Eddie Rosario. Kepler got some love from prospect evaluators last winter, with virtually every outlet ranking him in their various top-100 lists. Baseball America was the highest on the German-born outfielder, ranking him 30th overall. Newcomer 2080 Baseball was the low man on Kepler. They placed him at #100. Other outlets ranked him closer to #30 than to #100.
KATOH loves Kepler, projecting him for 11.9 WAR over the next six years — a figure which placed him seventh among all prospects heading into the 2016 season. KATOH ranked him ahead of several more well-regarded outfield prospects, including Kepler’s teammate Byron Buxton and the recently promoted Nomar Mazara. Although he’s not a consensus top prospect, it isn’t hard to see why KATOH — a stats-based projection system — is all over him. He slashed .332/.416/.531 in Double-A last year, and also kicked in 18 steals. It’s incredibly hard to poke holes in Kepler’s 2015 performance. He made lots of contact, walked more than he struck out (14% versus 13%, respectively), hit for power and stole bases. Simply put, he did it all.
Note: it’s quite possible that the player depicted in this video — identified by the Cubs broadcast team as Eugenio Suarez — is actually Ivan DeJesus. It’s also quite possible that the precise identity of the player is totally immaterial to how life is both hopeless and without hope.
For much of Monday evening, the Cincinnati Reds led the Chicago Cubs at the latter’s home park in the city of broad shoulders. Reds left-handed starter Brandon Finnegan didn’t concede his first hit until the seventh inning — and, even after a series of unconvincing appearances by a collection of Cincinnati relievers, that club still held a 3-2 lead heading into the bottom of the eighth.
With one out and men on first and second in that same inning, very large Cincinnati right-hander Jumbo Diaz entered the game — with the intent, one assumes, of preserving the Reds’ slim lead. What he did instead was to allow a first-pitch home run to Cubs shortstop Addison Russell.
What this post doesn’t include is footage of Russell himself recording that home run against Cincinnati’s Diaz. Imagine any of the myriad home runs you’ve ever witnessed in your life and you get the idea. What it does include, however, is video footage of Reds third baseman Eugenio Suarez observing Russell’s home run — and providing, at the same time, a dramatic interpretation of the entire human experience, beginning (at first) with hope and ending (at last) with the certain knowledge that all things end horribly.
Should this video constitute required reading for all America’s youth? Logic dictates that it certainly shouldn’t not be that.
From time to time, every year, I like to look at bad called strikes and bad called balls. The availability of PITCHf/x information makes this fairly easy, and, when isn’t it fun to examine the extraordinary? The point generally isn’t to rip on a given home-plate umpire. It’s more about trying to figure out why what happened happened. What has to take place for a ball to get called a strike? On the flip side, what has to take place for a strike to get called a ball?
This is the post about last year’s worst called ball, as determined by distance from the center of the strike zone. The pitch was thrown by Jeff Samardzija, and it missed the very middle by 1.2 inches. Still, while it was down the pipe, it was ruled in the hitter’s favor. A distance of 1.2 inches is a very small distance, so you can see why that was extreme. Now skip to 2016! This season is only barely underway. They’ve played less than four percent of the games, but we might’ve already seen the worst called ball. A pitch was ruled a ball even though it was to about the same spot as Samardzija’s, and the pitch was thrown just last Saturday by Clayton Kershaw.
