FanGraphs Baseball

Carlos Rodon didn’t have the time to make his initial pro-ball adjustments in the minor leagues. Less than a year after being drafted third overall by the Chicago White Sox in the 2014 amateur draft, he was summoned the majors. When Rodon got the call, he’d made all of eight minor-league starts and had thrown just 34.2 innings. So it’s not a surprise to see him find things along the way, like that moving toward the third-base side of the rubber halfway through his rookie year would help with his fleeting fastball command. That’s the sort of early-career adjustment that might typically happen out of the public eye, under the watch of a Double-A manager. Rodon’s not going to have the typical career. We’ll see nearly every adjustment he makes. We’re seeing one right now.

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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
San Francisco at Chicago NL | 20:05 ET
Samardzija (166.2 IP, 102 xFIP-) vs. Montgomery (79.2 IP, 85 xFIP-)
Without wasting even a moment on something as pedestrian as “research,” the author of this post is prepared to state that today’s schedule features the fewest games of any specific day so far this season, with the exception of those which precede and follow the All-Star game. Nevertheless, that schedule also features the San Francisco Giants, a club whose games are of greater consequence right now than basically every other team’s. Per the coin-flip methodology that appears at this site, the Giants currently possess a 36% probability of winning the division and 46% probability of qualifying for the wild-card game — which leaves just under a 20% chance that neither of those events will occur. Wild uncertainty, is how one might characterize their predicament.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: San Francisco Radio or Television.

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In February of 2015, 19-year old Cuban infielder Yoan Moncada agreed to a contract with the Boston Red Sox that included a $31.5 million signing bonus. In the 18 months that have elapsed since then, the baseball world has anticipated his arrival to its biggest stage and, this weekend, it’s going to get what it wants.

While we’ve all understandably been following and analyzing his progress and development in anticipation of things to come, possibly lost on us has been that Yoan Moncada is already a significant historical figure in baseball’s history. His departure from Cuba with the country’s unexplained blessing came at a time when the public was just beginning to understand what his predecessors and their families endured during their defections just as relations between the island and the United States began to change. He symbolizes the end of a historic era of Cuban baseball excellence, the most remarkable talent in a wave of defectors who have left the country, at least momentarily, dry.

His delivery to America and, eventually, the major leagues was preordained. There was too much money on the table for all parties involved for Moncada to take a bow behind an isolated archipelagian curtain. Unlike several supreme Cuban baseball talents who preceded him, American baseball fans are fortunate that they don’t have to ask themselves, “What if?” as they do with players like Yulieski Gurriel, Jose Contreras and Orlando Hernandez who debuted stateside past their primes, in their 30s. They instead have been asking, “When?”

Moncada’s relevance extends beyond international baseball popular culture and deep into the business end of things. He is so talented that, at the age of just 18, he shined a very public light on a multi-billion-dollar business’s flaccid and discriminatory system designed specifically to suppress the wages of teenage Latin American ball players by single-handedly pushing it to its limit. He forced Major League executives to confront a once-in-history scenario, a stoned sports fan’s hypothetical question about loopholes and generational talents: “How much money is the best teenager on the planet worth, up front?”

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The other day, I was reading a profile of Rougned Odor, the person. As shouldn’t come as any surprise, the public doesn’t have a real nuanced understanding of the guy — he’s just the little dude who clobbered Jose Bautista, and that makes him either likable or detestable. Like everyone else, the real Odor is a human being, something far more complicated than the single most well-known thing he did, and the consensus from those who know him is that Odor plays with an admirable edge. Maybe it makes him like a baseball version of an agitator, but those who’ve spent time with Odor tend to wish there were more players like him.

As a player, then, perhaps Odor is uncommon. And as a player type, he’s at least just as unusual. Speaking in a general sense, Odor appears to have an atypical engine. And he’s also weird when you get into the details. This is a baseball stats website. I’m here to deliver you some baseball stats.

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Ben and Sam banter about Shohei Otani, then answer listener emails about running the Rockies (with a twist), a Kershaw dilemma, a time-traveling Ubaldo Jimenez, umpire park effects, and more.

Just yesterday, I wrote about some concerns regarding Jake Arrieta. In particular, over time, Arrieta has gotten worse against left-handed hitters, losing the effectiveness of his best pitch while also losing his pinpoint command. This can be traced back to Arrieta losing the remarkable consistency of his mechanics. Arm speed and release point are everything, and for the last little while, Arrieta has been fighting uphill. He needs to get himself right before the playoffs.

Arrieta remains plenty good, but he has some stuff to work out. Kyle Hendricks, meanwhile, has nothing to work out. And compared to Arrieta, Hendricks has followed kind of the opposite course. He’s gotten better against left-handed hitters. He’s essentially added a new pitch while honing his pinpoint command. His mechanics are as consistent as they’ve ever been. Right now, we’re seeing the best version of Kyle Hendricks. You’ve probably read about him limiting quality contact. When you dig in, it’s no mystery how it’s happened.

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I’m writing this post as a favor to former colleague and friend-of-the-site Mike Petriello, who is now working as an analyst for MLB.com. Over the last few weeks, on Twitter, Mike has been doing his best to dispel the notion that teams have to set their playoff rosters today.

I think I annoy people by talking about postseason eligibility so much but this is why https://t.co/ackJTa7hbV

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) August 30, 2016

The myth of the August 31st playoff roster deadline is seemingly born out of the notion that, to be eligible to play in the postseason, teams have to acquire players from other organizations by the end of the day today. That part is absolutely true; any player acquired tomorrow will not be eligible to participate in the postseason. But beyond that restriction, anyone in a team’s organization today is effectively eligible for the playoff roster, no matter what part of the organization they are assigned to today.

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Two years ago, I wrote that the Blue Jays may have hit it big when they took Rowdy Tellez in the 30th round of the 2013 draft. So far, that suggestion looks solid. The 21-year-old first-base prospect logged an .801 OPS in A-ball last season, and this year he’s slashing .296/.384/.516 with Double-A New Hampshire.

Power is his calling card. Tellez has 50 extra-base hits as a Fisher Cat, and 20 of them have left the yard. When he really gets into one, they cross property lines. In our 2014 interview, Tellez told me he once hit a ball “over the fence, then a back yard, then a house, then over a cul de sac, and then into the next house across the street.”

He sees himself as more than a slugger. His minor-league numbers back that up, as does a left-handed stroke modeled after a pair of All-Stars’.

Tellez talked about his game — and the draft-snub chip that remains on his shoulder — prior to a recent game in Portland, Maine.

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Tellez on what has changed since two years ago: “A lot is different. I’m two years older and hopefully a little wiser. Defensively, I’m leaps and bounds ahead of where I was then. I’m a much more competent fielder. Everybody is confident in throwing the ball over to me and pitchers don’t worry about ground balls hit to me. Defense is what I’ve worked on the most. I’ve worked on it day in, day out.

“I’ve lost weight. I’m 245 now. The most I’ve been is probably about 275. That was around the time I signed out of high school.

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This is a guest post from our friends at NEIFI.co, who have built a projection system and systematic evaluation methodology about which you can read more at their site. They also tweet @NEIFIco and have started their own blog as well.

Back in November, we contributed a post about Japanese superstar Shohei Otani, noting that the 22-year-old hurler already projected as one of the best pitchers on the planet, and would be one of the most coveted international imports in baseball history if his NPB team, Nippon Ham, decided to make him available to MLB clubs. Since that time, Otani’s 2016 season has only expanded his legend.

On the mound, Otani has had another great year, allowing a 2.25 ERA in 16 starts and racking up 140 strikeouts in 116 innings. But his real coming out party has been at the plate, as he’s forced his way into the lineup on a regular basis, becoming a legitimate two-way player. In 301 plate appearances, he’s hitting .333/.435/.631, which means he leads the league in OPS. With all due respect to Madison Bumgarner and the #PitchersWhoRake hashtag, Otani looks like something the likes of which we don’t currently have in MLB.

That brings up the obvious question: do we have any relevant comparisons for Shohei Otani?

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