FanGraphs Baseball

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
Los Angeles NL at Colorado | 20:10 ET
Stewart (5.0 IP, 70 xFIP-) vs. Anderson (54.0 IP, 79 xFIP-)
Here’s a syllogism regarding Brock Stewart, who’s scheduled to record his second-ever major-league start tonight:

• Pitchers who record strong strikeout- and walk-rate differentials (frequently expressed as K-BB%) as minor leaguers tend to experience major-league success.
• Among all affiliated minor-league pitchers who’ve recorded 100-plus innings, Brock Stewart has produced the top K-BB% this season.
• Therefore, Brock Stewart is likely to experience major-league success.
• Also, he recorded an average fastball velocity of 94 mph in his lone major-league appearance this year.
• That’s not really part of the syllogism, but it’s still relevant to Stewart’s major-league success.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Radio.

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Brandon Guyer is currently baseball’s Hit-by-Pitch King. You could take that to mean this year, as Guyer leads all batters with 23 hit by pitches this season. Or you could take it to mean lately, as Guyer leads all batters over the last two years with 47 hit by pitches, and his 58 over the last three leaves him just one behind Anthony Rizzo’s league-leading total, despite Guyer having half the plate appearances over that stretch. Or, you could even take it to mean all-time, because if you set a career plate appearance minimum of 500 and search the entire history of modern baseball dating back to 1921, no one’s been hit more frequently than our recently anointed Hit-by-Pitch King.

HBP%, 1921-present, min. 500 PA

1. Brandon Guyer, 5.9%
2. Derek Dietrich, 4.7%
3. F.P. Santangelo, 4.0%
4. Ron Hunt, 3.9%
5. Carlos Quentin, 3.9%

The gap is remarkable. Throughout the entire history of modern baseball, at this particular skill, Brandon Guyer is truly a one-of-a-kind. And make no mistakes, it is a skill. Maybe “skill” isn’t the word you’d immediately think to use, but another way to think about a skill is the ability to repeatedly do something others can’t as a means to gain an advantage over the opponent. Most often, we see that manifested in a batter consistently getting hits, or stealing bases, or drawing walks. Oh, Guyer can hit, too, but where he really gains his edge is the being hit.

Eno Sarris wrote about this a bit when the Indians acquired Guyer at the deadline for low-level prospects Nathan Lukes and Jhonleider Salinas. The reason the Indians went out and got Guyer is because he can play all three outfield positions with what appears to be above-average ability, and mostly because he’s been one of baseball’s very best bats against left-handed pitching since he began receiving regular playing time in 2014. As Eno put it, Guyer improves the Indians’ ability to both hit lefties, and be hit by lefties. But plenty of batters have been able to hit lefties. Nobody in the history of the sport’s been hit like Guyer, so that’s where our focus turns.

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The Red Sox made Andrew Benintendi the seventh pick in the draft last summer after he hit a torrid .376/.488/.717 as a sophomore at Arkansas, giving him easily the highest OPS in the SEC. Benintendi wasted no time proving his mettle in pro ball. He kicked things off by slashing .313/.414/.556 between two levels of A-ball, pairing a minuscule strikeout rate with loads of power.

Benintendi’s done more of the same in 2016, only this time at High-A and Double-A. He’s posted equal strikeout and walk rates — both 9% — while also hitting for power and stealing bases. The end result has been an unequivocally excellent .312/.378/.532 batting line. Considering he grades out as an above-average center fielder by Clay Davenport’s numbers, there really isn’t anything Benintendi can’t do.

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Episode 673
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio, he guides the program’s host through the morass of transactions which occurred at baseball’s non-waiver trade deadline.

This episode of the program either is or isn’t 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 57 min play time.)

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In the table below, you’ll find a treasure trove of information pertaining to the prospect-y players who changed hands this trade deadline. There were 47 of them in all. The “KATOH” and “KATOH+” columns refer to each player’s projected WAR forecast for the first six years of his major-league career, as evaluated by my newly updated KATOH system. KATOH denotes WAR forecast for first six years of player’s major-league career. KATOH+ uses similar methodology with consideration also for Baseball America’s rankings. The right-most column refers to lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen’s scouting grades, which should serve as something of a sanity check for my admittedly flawed projections.

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Some while ago, baseball sent a packet to the player’s union, and within a few ideas were reportedly mentioned that might potentially help restore what had been dwindling levels of offense. There was talk about maybe lowering the mound. There was talk about the DH. There was talk about livening up the baseball, and there was talk about tweaking the strike zone. There was other stuff, too. It was probably a detailed packet.

Now, those were just scattered ideas, conversational starting points. Nothing was made into rule, but it’s interesting to reflect on the point about the ball, given recent research by Ben Lindbergh and Rob Arthur. Or, if you prefer, just given recent home-run trends. Rob Manfred has denied that anything about the baseball has changed, but balls have gone flying and run-scoring is up. It is, at the very least, curious. Not that fans are complaining.

And then there’s the matter of the zone. Manfred correctly observed that the zone had expanded. It’s possible that, as soon as next season, the strike zone could be officially raised. Major League Baseball has stayed on top of the research, and league officials understand that the zone grew over time, in particular around the knees. Next year, we could have a rule change. But based on indications, we’ve already seen the strike zone move a little up. For the first time in recent recorded history, baseball is using a strike zone smaller than the one it had the year before.

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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
Toronto at Houston | 20:10 ET
Dickey (131.1 IP, 111 xFIP-) vs. McCullers (76.1 IP, 74 xFIP-)
It isn’t true, but what if it were, that the sum of Lance McCullers‘ innings-pitched total and xFIP- always equaled 150? Like, if he pitched seven innings tonight, his xFIP- would drop to 67. If he pitched another seven innings in his next start, he’d then have a 60 xFIP-. And then, if he recorded 61 innings in his next-next start, he would sport a negative xFIP-.

In conclusion, what the author has utilized here is a series of counterfactual conditionals, utilizing both the subjunctive and conditional verb moods.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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A little while ago I asked Dave to guess off the top of his head what Yasiel Puig might get if he were a free agent this winter. Now, I didn’t tell Dave this was going to be public, so if you disagree with his estimate let’s all be nice, but he landed on one year and $6 million. What Yasiel Puig actually has left on his commitment after this year is two years and something like $14 million, plus some arbitration eligibility in 2019. So while Puig is anything but extraordinarily expensive — in baseball terms — there really is some chance he could be moved in a waiver deal. As unlikely as it is, it’s incredible we’ve gotten here at all.

The Dodgers have been trying to trade Puig. They’ve been trying for months, and now that they have Josh Reddick, Puig, who remains, is going to the minors. In part, this is about performance, and in part, this is apparently about discipline, which is hardly anything new as Puig is concerned. The discipline issues are bad enough that the Dodgers are overlooking Puig’s recently acceptable numbers. The marriage there is very clearly ending, just a few years after Puig was anointed one of the faces of the franchise.

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Ben and Sam discuss Jonathan Lucroy, Rich Hill, the rebuilding Yankees, the price of relievers and multiple trade-deadline rumors they had trouble believing.

There’s a bad joke that we throw around when an older player signs — that he brings with him veteran presents. In the modern clubhouse, though, it’s unclear how much this sort of thing matters. There’s a lot of putting your head down and working on your craft — or keeping your nose out of other players’ business, at least. But then you get the odd story here or there where a veteran comes in and helps a young man develop, and you wonder if the jokes are misplaced.

Like this story about Jon Gray. He was a man with a fastball and a slider, searching for something that would expand his arsenal. The curve was promising, but less effective in Colorado. “Then I talked to [Adam] Ottavino about the slider,” the 24-year-old Rockies starter told me earlier this year, “and I started manipulating it differently in different situations.” Look at that: tangible veteran presents, from a player who just last year told us about his ability to alter his slider to battle lefties.

I recently got to check back in with Gray about that slider manipulation. He was fresh off a rejuvenating bullpen session in San Francisco and had even better feelings about his changeup. And his curve. Now we look up and, in his last start, on Wednesday against the Orioles, he actually used both his curve and change 10% of the time… and it was the third time he’d done so all season. Looks like Gray has found a few more pitches that he trusts.

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