Useless and true: Jake Odorizzi is currently the major league’s pitching WAR leader. He’s made one start! Danny Salazar has made zero starts. All this means is that Odorizzi’s first start was a good one, and maybe the best so far, or maybe not. Noah Syndergaard had a pretty awesome debut, too. Jose Fernandez was sweet. Chris Archer looked good. Odorizzi was right there. He struck out 10 Blue Jays in 5.2 innings, allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits and two walks. Nice little start! Against a nice little offense.

Tampa Bay’s rotation ranked 15th when we rolled out our positional power rankings, but it’s also a rotation that figures to posses considerable upside. Everyone’s young, and everyone’s hinted at a higher level. Archer, obviously, is fantastic. Last year, he positioned himself as an ace, and even he’s got room to improve. Drew Smyly struck out a shocking number of batters last season, and with just a year of health could reasonably go from a name that just baseball nuts know to a name that everyone knows. Matt Moore will seemingly always have potential. There’s plenty of talent down on the farm. Plus, there’s Odorizzi. You could make the case for anyone here as being on the cusp of a breakout. At the very least, everyone’s doing what they can to take that next step.

Odorizzi, in particular, has something in the works, something about which he’s been vocal as of late, and something that was on display in his season debut. It’s best to be up front right now and say the results, admittedly, were mixed, but Odorizzi understands he has a weakness, has formulated a plan to combat that weakness, and is seemingly committed to seeing it out.

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Luke Gregerson isn’t as slider-heavy as he was once was. The Astros reliever threw his signature pitch 41% of the time last season. Since he broke into the big leagues in 2009, his 54.4% slider rate is the highest among pitchers who’ve recorded at least 350 innings.

He’s been effective. Gregerson boasts a 2.79 ERA and 2.97 FIP in 500 career appearances. He notched 31 saves last year, and while he’s more about ground balls than punch outs, his K/9 is a more than respectable 8.81.

Most of the questions the 31-year-old righty has fielded this spring have revolved around Houston’s offseason acquisition of Ken Giles — a closer with the Phillies — and their roles going forward. On Wednesday, I approached Gregerson with a different subject in mind: his hard-to-square-up slider.

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Gregerson on what he considers ideal fastball-slider speed differential: “That’s a good question. I’ve never really thought about that too much. I just want it to move. That’s the biggest key for me. For guys who throw really hard, having a straight change that’s a slower speed is definitely a good thing. But for somebody like myself who’s not very overpowering… I’d say I’m looking more for late, hard movement, not a change of speed from my fastball.”

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Moreso than any of their other coaching brethren, pitching coaches develop rather specific reputations for the influence they exert on their respective clubs. Don Cooper of the Chicago White Sox, for example, is known for teaching his pitchers the cutter. The Mets’ Dan Warthen is known for the slider. Dave Duncan, in his time with Oakland and St. Louis, developed a reputation for his reclamation projects and also teaching the sinker. Ray Searage of the Pittsburgh Pirates now has a well-developed reputation for reclamation projects including A.J. Burnett, J.A. Happ, and Edinson Volquez. Jeff Sullivan noted in Spring Training that Juan Nicasio might be Searage’s lastest success story. After Wednesday night’s game against the Cardinals, the first phase of Nicasio’s transformation is complete.

Finishing off a sweep of the Cardinals which saw Pittsburgh pitchers record 37 strikeouts over three games, Nicasio produced a very good debut, throwing six innings, striking out seven while walking none, and giving up just one run on a solo shot to Jeremy Hazelbaker — one of just two hits allowed. He did it all without recording more than 15 pitches in any one inning. Nicasio has long had a high-octane four-seam fastball and a decent slider that has generated 13% whiff rate while being used 22% of the time — second only to his fastball (69% usage rate), per Brooks Baseball. What he hasn’t done previously, however, is utilize his arsenal to achieve extended success.

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Starlin Castro has spent a lot of his career being frustrating, and he’s spent a good chunk of it being disappointing, but a player can’t be either of those things unless he has a certain amount of ability. Fans have to like you before they can later be frustrated by you, and so Castro’s time in Chicago was a bit of a roller-coaster. His time in New York will also have its ups and downs, but in the earliest possible going, it’s been all gold stars. Castro has two homers and seven hits in 12 trips to the plate, so gone are the concerns about how he might adjust. Yankees fans haven’t been let down yet.

You know what time of year it is. This is when we make too much out of everything, because we’re just excited to have new data. By the end of the season, Castro’s slugging percentage is probably going to look more like .400 than its current 1.250. This much I can assure you, though: Castro is showing that he’s carried over his late-season adjustments from 2015. It got kind of lost, but Castro finished last year strong. Then he had a good spring training. Now he’s off to a hot start. Castro isn’t going to finish as the best hitter on the Yankees, I assume, but he’s a better hitter now than he was for a lot of last summer. Pictures are going to help with this.

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Episode 645
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which edition he discusses the benefits and risks of pulling the ball — and, in particular, how that tension relates to Boston’s Mookie Betts — and also the new freely available stream of batted-ball data being provided this year by Statcast.

This episode of the program is 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 39 min play time.)

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The 2016 season is in its early stages, though sample sizes obviously remain way too small to take very seriously. So let’s just sit back and enjoy the 2016 games for now, and continue our ball-in-play-based analysis of 2015 starting pitcher performance. Two more to go. Last time, we looked at the AL East. Today, the AL Central is on tap.

First, some ground rules. To come up with an overall player population roughly equal to one starting rotation per team, the minimum number of batted balls allowed with Statcast readings was set at 243. Pitchers are listed with their 2015 division mates; those who were traded during the season will appear in the division in which they compiled the most innings. Pitchers are listed in “tru” ERA order. For those who have not read my previous articles on the topic, “tru” ERA is the ERA pitchers “should” have compiled based on the actual BIP frequency and authority they allowed relative to the league. Here we go:

Starting Pitcher BIP Profiles – AL Central

	AVG MPH	FB/LD MPH	GB MPH	POP %	FLY %	LD %	GB %	ADJ C	K %	BB %	ERA –	FIP –	TRU –
Sale	85.93	89.75	81.38	3.5%	31.8%	22.1%	42.6%	97	32.1%	4.9%	85	68	61
Carrasco	88.70	92.53	86.33	2.0%	27.8%	19.0%	51.2%	98	29.6%	5.9%	91	71	69
Verlander	87.42	89.65	87.67	6.3%	39.2%	19.9%	34.6%	77	21.1%	6.0%	84	87	69
Kluber	88.05	91.96	84.76	2.8%	33.1%	21.7%	42.4%	105	27.7%	5.1%	87	74	75
Price	87.95	90.96	85.42	4.0%	32.5%	23.1%	40.4%	98	25.3%	5.3%	61	69	76
Salazar	89.76	92.12	87.89	2.2%	35.2%	18.7%	43.9%	102	25.8%	7.0%	86	90	81
C.Young	87.62	90.88	85.31	8.6%	49.3%	16.6%	25.5%	85	16.6%	8.6%	76	113	82
T.May	88.41	90.14	87.90	4.0%	35.6%	21.4%	39.0%	100	22.4%	5.3%	100	81	83
Milone	87.23	91.32	84.67	5.5%	29.9%	23.0%	41.6%	84	16.8%	6.6%	98	107	84
Quintana	88.10	91.28	86.50	1.9%	27.8%	23.2%	47.1%	100	20.5%	5.1%	84	79	86
An.Sanchez	87.65	90.75	85.37	5.0%	34.1%	21.0%	40.0%	98	20.9%	7.4%	124	118	89
K.Gibson	88.70	93.34	86.39	2.4%	24.4%	19.8%	53.4%	92	17.7%	7.9%	96	99	91
Samardzija	87.98	90.32	87.00	4.0%	35.8%	21.2%	39.0%	102	17.9%	5.4%	124	105	94
Danks	87.01	90.87	83.60	4.4%	36.3%	21.1%	38.2%	92	16.2%	7.3%	117	112	94
Ventura	89.81	93.03	86.97	2.1%	25.1%	20.6%	52.2%	109	22.5%	8.4%	102	89	96
Bauer	88.53	91.45	87.42	5.6%	35.1%	20.1%	39.2%	106	22.9%	10.6%	113	108	97
Volquez	87.96	90.60	86.38	1.6%	31.3%	21.1%	46.0%	100	18.2%	8.5%	89	95	99
Rodon	89.00	91.92	87.77	2.4%	27.4%	23.4%	46.8%	114	22.9%	11.7%	94	97	105
E.Santana	90.42	93.12	88.94	5.5%	32.1%	21.5%	40.9%	111	17.9%	7.9%	100	104	108
Pelfrey	88.37	91.68	87.35	1.8%	24.6%	22.6%	51.0%	102	12.0%	6.3%	106	100	109
Duffy	89.32	91.75	89.42	6.5%	30.0%	24.7%	38.8%	111	17.4%	9.0%	102	110	112
Hughes	90.27	91.99	88.99	4.5%	35.9%	24.2%	35.3%	133	14.4%	2.5%	110	117	124
Simon	90.55	94.43	87.21	4.1%	30.6%	21.7%	43.6%	123	14.3%	8.3%	126	119	129
Guthrie	89.09	90.88	87.84	3.3%	36.5%	25.8%	34.4%	126	12.7%	6.6%	148	140	132
AVERAGE	88.49	91.53	86.60	3.9%	32.6%	21.6%	42.0%	103	20.2%	7.0%	100	98	94

Most of the column headers are self-explanatory, including average BIP speed (overall and by BIP type), BIP type frequency, K and BB rates, and traditional ERA-, FIP-, and “tru” ERA-. Each pitchers’ Adjusted Contact Score (ADJ C) is also listed. Again, for those of you who have not read my articles on the topic, Unadjusted Contact Score is derived by removing Ks and BBs from opposing hitters’ batting lines, assigning run values to all other events, and comparing them to a league average of 100. Adjusted Contact Score applies league-average production to each pitchers’ individual actual BIP type and velocity mix, and compares it to league average of 100.

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Stephen Strasburg didn’t pitch the game of his life on Wednesday or anything, but he was plenty solid, allowing one run over six innings. He threw his fastball around the familiar 95. He threw his changeup around the familiar 88. He threw his curveball around the familiar 81. And then it seemed like there was something else. The Nationals broadcast on several occasions noted that it looked like Strasburg was throwing some kind of slider, at 89 – 90. He’s fiddled with the pitch before, but only infrequently. Strasburg himself? He later denied that he was up to anything.

Strasburg appeared to get Norris on a slider, which would be a new pitch in his arsenal that he seemed to mix in a few times throughout the night. After the game, however, Strasburg denied that he had added a slider.

“No, same stuff I’ve been doing in Spring Training,” he said.

Now, that’s not the most firm denial. But it also just doesn’t matter much. Strasburg can say what he wants, but he can’t control what we see with PITCHf/x. And PITCHf/x picked up on something.

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Did you, like many others, come into this season wondering what to expect out of Robinson Cano? Did you believe that reports of his demise might be greatly exaggerated? Well, if three games are any indication, wonder no longer. He’s hit four home runs in 14 plate appearances! I don’t really need to dive too deep into his wRC+ (it’s 340), or many other stats at this point in the season, because they’ll simply reinforce for you that he’s been pretty impossibly good in 27 innings of baseball. The “I don’t need to hit the ball in the field of play” second baseman has a BABIP of .000. The point of this piece, then, is to tell you how and why Cano has been good, and the specific parts of his plate approach that are assuaging some of the fears people had about him last season.

Cano’s 2015 featured, at root, two halves. Every season of every player’s career features two halves, but Cano’s were relevant in that his production was starkly divided between the two of them. There was pre-July 1st Cano, he of the .105 ISO and 71 wRC+. And then there was post-July 1st Cano, he of the .209 ISO and 157 wRC+. Second-half Cano was literally 100% better than first-half Cano when compared to league average.

If you’re reading this, you probably know that everyone was trying to figure out what was wrong in that first half. Here’s Jeff mainly talking about him hitting too many ground balls. Here’s Dan going in-depth on how his hitting mechanics were a little messed-up. Here’s an interview in which Cano says a stomach parasite sapped his strength. There was obviously a lot going on, and his first-half performance was probably all of those negative forces coming together in the form of terrible baseballing.

The second half of 2015 was a complete turnaround, however. He started to hit more line drives and fly balls. He went to the opposite field at something closer to his career rates. His home run/fly ball rate and BABIP regressed toward (and surpassed) his career norms. His first half probably wasn’t as bad as it looked, but his second half was a pretty effective inversion of that. Players in their early 30s who play poorly for extended periods while on massive contracts tend to be placed under a microscope, however, so questions about Cano’s partial 2015 failures followed him into 2016.

He’s answered those questions pretty effectively in the early going. And, while we shouldn’t take anything away from what Cano’s done so far, we also need to ask some questions of how the Rangers approached him in their just-concluded opening series. Sure, we should remind ourselves that it’s just three games, but the very obvious way Texas pitched to him could act as a bit of a warning for those teams about to face him. So how did the Rangers approach him? The answer was, unequivocally, “witin the zone.” Take a look at Cano’s in-zone rate and rate of first-pitch strikes from 2013 to 2015 as compared to the series against the Rangers:

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