With help from Twins fan Aaron Gleeman and Braves fan Alex Remington, Ben and Sam attempt to determine which of MLB’s two winless teams has had the more demoralizing start to the season.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Against an admittedly terrible Padres lineup, Vincent Velasquez just pitched the game of his life. No matter how high you are on Velasquez’s potential, you should agree he’ll probably never again finish with such a sparkling line: nine innings, no runs, three singles, no walks, 16 strikeouts. Velasquez was constantly around the zone, but the Padres couldn’t do a thing, and the Phillies allowed Velasquez to get the final out because he hadn’t yet thrown a single pitch under stress. Velasquez didn’t just pitch to that final line; he cruised to it.
It was an incredible, overpowering effort, and I’m going to write more about Velasquez tomorrow. I’ll write more about the game, and more about Velasquez in general. But my favorite part wasn’t how Velasquez worked, or finished. Rather, my favorite part was how he treated Cory Spangenberg. Now, I don’t know if it was by design. But Velasquez wound up facing Spangenberg four times, and he was awfully cruel.
For some time now, Major League Baseball teams have depended on major revenues from local regional sports networks (RSNs), entities which themselves have depended on cable providers paying high per-subscriber fees to put those networks on the standard-cable tier. This relationship has long prevented fans from watching their local team without paying for a bulky and often expensive cable subscription. MLB.TV blacks out local games to accommodate the relationship and the revenue that comes with it. While it is not full-scale a la carte, Sling TV’s recent announcement that they will carry FOX Sports RSNs on their new offering for $20 per month is a major win for consumers and a way for MLB to keep their product relevant to those who do not subscribe to traditional cable — frequently a younger demographic that MLB desires.
MLB.TV is a very good product that streams out-of-market games. The announcement last fall that in-market streaming would be available to cable subscribers represented a small step for fans who increasingly consume the game digitally. What was missing, however — and has been missing for years — is a digital option to watch local games without also having to subscribe to a local cable provider. We’re certainly not all the way there, but the newest offering from Sling TV is a big step in the right direction, and a very good compromise for those who do not want to pay for traditional cable.
Inevitably, after just a week and change’s worth of games, we find players on teams that have gotten off to slow starts saying things about how it’s just April, and win-loss records don’t matter too much. Outward optimism is sort of a prerequisite if you’re a professional athlete — whether you truly feel it or not — but there’s no doubt the majority of players who make these comments most likely believe them. It is early, and there’s plenty of time left in the season. But, as Jeff pointed out this week, the games matter! Playoff odds have changed. For the Braves, they never really had a shot to begin with, so starting 0-8 doesn’t change too much. But for the Minnesota Twins, their longshot campaign to make the playoffs this season has taken a faceplant.
Let’s talk about the Twins first, as they’re the big story here, and the American League Central is likely to be one of the most competitive divisions in baseball this season. Though our projections liked (and still like) Cleveland’s team this season, the Royals have declared war on those projections, and the Tigers and White Sox have built interesting teams with upside. That is true to some extent for the Twins as well: they’re building for the future, sure, but they also have some intriguing breakout candidates who could theoretically propel them into contention in a division that doesn’t have a clear-cut top dog. Those are the makings of a potentially great four- or five-way division battle throughout the season! Or else, that was the idea until now, eight games into the season, when the Twins find themselves 0-8. Here’s what that has done to their potential playoff odds (click on the image for a larger version):
Ben, Sam, and FanGraphs writer Jeff Sullivan banter about ballplayer humor, then talk about players (including Garrett Richards, Starlin Castro, and Stephen Strasburg) who are doing something notably different so far this season.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
It’s funny — a couple months back, Jeff did a little study on the teams about which we’ve written the most and least. At the time of his study, we’d written fewer articles about the Twins than any other team, since 2008. And I’d bet a good chunk of those articles were about the Twins’ pitching staff, and their avoidance of strikeouts, or something similar along those lines. Well, here’s a new Twins article! And, guess what, it’s about strikeouts again!
Except, well:
I’m sorry it has to be this way, Minnesota.
In case it’s not clear, those aren’t just the top two names on the strikeout leaderboard of Twins batters with at least 20 plate appearances this season, those are the top two names on the strikeout leaderboard of all batters with at least 20 plate appearances this season. Miguel Sano is sixth. Eddie Rosario is 15th. Things haven’t gone particularly well for the Twins thus far. They’re 0-8.
And I suppose this post could be about Byron Buxton, or collectively all those names I named, but I don’t meant to pile on. Sano will be just fine, and his strikeout rate really isn’t that much higher than we’d expect it to be. Rosario just isn’t particularly interesting. Buxton’s struck out 13 times and walked zero in 25 plate appearances, and actually, that should probably have its own post, but I’ve already done all this research on Park, so this is what you’ve got for now. Someone will get to Buxton soon enough. Let’s talk about Byung-ho Park, who’s struck out exactly as often as he hasn’t.
Unless you’ve been following the Yankees this year, there’s a decent chance you have no idea who Ronald Torreyes is. That’s understandable. I’ve been monitoring him for a while, but that’s only because I spend an inordinate amount of time parsing through minor-league data to identify players like him: players who are way, way off the prospect radar, but who project to be impact big leaguers.
Torreyes is off to a torrid start this year. In limited action with the Yankees, the 23-year-old infielder is hitting .667/.667/1.000. That’s a 401 wRC+. In nine trips to the plate, he has two singles, a double, a triple and only one strikeout. I know: small sample, blah, blah, BABIP, blah, blah. But Torreyes’ first nine plate appearances have been about as good as it gets.
| 11:59 |
: Thanks for joining me on a Thursday this week. Spent a lot of time flying back to NC yesterday, so thanks to Eno for filling in.
|
| 11:59 |
: Now we see if the Thursday crowd is any different!
|
| 11:59 |
: How did you enjoy your time in Toronto and at Pitch Talks?
|
| 12:00 |
: Pitch Talks was great. One of the most fun baseball events I’ve been to, and excited to be part of a bunch more this summer. If you have a chance to go to one, you definitely need to do so. They’re a blast. Toronto itself was also great, but a bit cold. Try to be warmer, Canada.
|
| 12:00 |
: Is it possible to trade for a coach? I feel like teams would part with pretty high level prospects for Ray Searage
|
| 12:01 |
: Yes, it happens, but rarely. Lou Piniella was traded, for instance. Usually it’s more of a guy-wants-to-leave situation, though, and the team gets compensation for letting him out of his contract. I don’t think teams could or would trade a coach against his will. And Searage doesn’t want to leave Pittsburgh.
|
Over the last few years, we’ve done a random collection of events in cities around the country, usually calling them something like FanGraphs Live. We’d get a few of our staff members together to hang out with a bunch of our readers, spend a few hours talking baseball, and generally have a great time. We always meant to do more of them, but the logistics of finding places to host the events always served as something of a barrier, so they ended up being scheduled sporadically.
Well, for those who were hoping for more of these kinds of events, we have some good news. We’ve teamed up with the guys behind the Pitch Talks series, and as they roll out their baseball speaker series across the U.S., we’re going to be pretty heavily involved, with our writers as part of the show and friends of FanGraphs joining in for some fun discussions. I was up in Toronto for the two year anniversary show last week, and it was a blast, with roughly 600 Blue Jays fans packing out a music venue for a few hours of fantastic discussion and mildly-drunken banter about the game we all love. We are really looking forward to helping bring that kind of fun to more cities around the U.S.
For the first stop on the tour this summer, we’re coming to Boston.
In a draft year that’s churning out a better college hitting crop than the industry expected before the season began, Wake Forest infielder Will Craig is another such college hitting prospect that’s making a strong case for a top-two-rounds selection.
I saw Craig this weekend when the Demon Deacons visited N.C. State for a three-game series that included a rare Monday night game, which aired on ESPNU. He’s a high follow mostly for his bat, and he’s done nothing but rake since he arrived in Winston-Salem. As of publication, he’s comically slashing .466/.581/.909, placing him inside the nation’s top five in all three categories. Perhaps then it’s no wonder that he surfaces as the ACC’s top draft-eligible batter in Carson Cistulli’s latest installment of top college players by (maybe) predictive stats.
The video below moves from batting practice to pre-game infield to game swings. For the sake of an evaluation, it helped that he was facing N.C. State left-hander Ryan Williamson, a solid pro prospect who gets his own video and bullet point further down. Both videos also feature receiving demonstrations by N.C. State catcher Andrew Knizner, another solid prospect who gets mentioned in this space.
Physical Description
Craig looks every bit of his listed 6-foot-3, 235-pound constitution, a big-bodied frame that has reached its full development. His natural strength is concealed by a soft, thick build that’s supported by a pair of tree trunks. He also has unexpected rotational athleticism for such a big dude, which is more apparent when he’s pitching than when he’s doing anything else. Ideally, his pro training regimen trims 10-15 pounds and replaces the void with muscle. Craig was drafted by the Royals in the 37th round of the 2013 draft out of Science Hill HS (Tenn.), where he teamed with Tigers lefty Daniel Norris.
