FanGraphs Baseball

Episode 665
Dave Cameron is the managing editor of FanGraphs. During this edition of FanGraphs Audio he discusses how the Padres’ flurry of international signings might indicate an attempt by the organization to solve the wrong kind of problem; addresses the likelihood of the Yankees’ trading any of their impressive bullpen triumvirate; and explains the concept of diminishing returns to the host as if the latter were a small child.

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 46 min play time.)

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It’s always dangerous to assume everyone else is the same as you are. Just because you don’t give a shit about poems doesn’t mean other people don’t give a shit about poems. You want to be careful not to assume too much of your own preferences and experiences. That being said, I’m pretty comfortable with one assumption — I’ve barely paid attention to the Padres, and I feel like most people have barely paid attention to the Padres. That’s not to say no one has paid attention to the Padres, but those who have are probably few and far between. You know how it goes. Apparently Austin Hedges is leading all Triple-A hitters in slugging percentage by like a million points. I learned this Tuesday morning. Austin Hedges? Whatever.

About a certain Padres player, then. Apologies to those of you for whom this isn’t new news, but something has quietly been taking place. Remember when the Padres picked up Melvin Upton Jr.? They did it in the Craig Kimbrel trade, and they took him on as a salary dump. The Braves just wanted to be rid of him, and right away, the Padres put Upton on the DL. He did come back and play, eventually. He played well. And he hasn’t…stopped…playing well. Away from the spotlight, away from the pressure, Upton has rediscovered his talent. It sure looks to me like Melvin Upton Jr. is back.

The Braves signed Upton after the 2012 season. In the table below, you’ll see three lines of numbers. You see the three years of Upton leading up to free agency. You see his two catastrophic years with the Braves. And you see his past year as a Padre.

I’ll be damned. Recent Upton isn’t the exact same as earlier Upton, but the profile is awfully close. Strikeout-prone power hitter with athletic, all-around skills. Upton, back then, looked like a borderline star. For the past year or so, he’s played like a borderline star. You can never forget about a dip like the dip he had, and it’s not like Upton would forgive himself for that or anything, but the player Upton looks like now is the player the Braves wanted to sign. He didn’t hit the ground running, but Upton is working to salvage the contract he agreed to. He lived through a professional nightmare, and he didn’t let it destroy him.

Over the weekend, Upton mashed a walk-off dinger against the impossible Andrew Miller. In the past year, Upton has clocked in with a 36% hard-hit rate, matching Jay Bruce and Andrew McCutchen. The Braves got burned. You do have to wonder how much another team would trust Upton, at this point. But he’s made himself appealing again, at least to some extent, and his contract extends through next year, when he’ll earn around $17 million. What’s crazy now is it’s not too hard to imagine Upton actually being worth that salary. All he’d have to be is something like an average outfielder, and lately he’s been clearing that bar. Clearing it easily! Melvin Upton Jr. could be a legitimate trade target. The Padres might not have to eat too much money. They got a bad break with the Jon Jay injury, but this career reversal is working out.

Upton’s back. If he’s not all the way back, he’s seemingly most of the way back. That’s astonishing in and of itself, and you could write a book about all this. Hell of a story, Melvin Upton Jr.’s. Another time, we can celebrate how Upton has found himself. For now, it’s July, and Upton is a talented veteran on a go-nowhere team. Front offices are going to call about Upton. Front offices are going to want Upton. Upton, once again, ought to be wanted. What a game this is.

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
Baltimore at Los Angeles NL | 15:10 ET
Gausman (81.2 IP, 89 xFIP-) vs. Norris (76.1 IP, 97 xFIP-)
If one takes for granted that ballplayers enjoy winning more than losing and prefer to qualify for the postseason rather than not to qualify for it, then one might also reasonably state that the recent trade between Los Angeles and Atlanta has improved right-hander Bud Norris’s professional life. On the day of that particular transaction (June 30th), Los Angeles possessed a 79.3% probability of qualifying for the postseason in some capacity; Atlanta, much closer to 0.0%. That represents an improvement of roughly 80 percentage points. How does this compare to other players? It seems the only other recent trade of note involved Fernando Rodney. He moved, on that same day, from San Diego (0.0%) to Miami (27.7%). Still an improvement, but roughly 50 points less of an improvement than the one experienced by Norris.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL Television.

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Javier Baez is a home-run hitter, and on Tuesday against the Reds, he hit a home run. This is a video of said home run, linked because it is not yet embeddable. I would encourage you to watch the home run, because why not?, but if you’re not in the mood, check out the catcher’s pitch signal:

The count was 1-and-2, and Javier Baez is also a strikeout hitter, so the signal was for a pitch in the dirt. If not for a pitch in the dirt, then it was at least for a pitch well below the zone. Nothing unusual for the circumstance. Here’s the pitch that Baez ultimately hit:

Yeah, so, whoopsadoodle. What was supposed to be thrown was a pitch below the knee. What was actually thrown was a pitch over the middle and at the belt, with Baez already in swing mode and probably guessing offspeed. Baez strikes out and hits home runs. Featured here, he got his home run.

Like many hitters, Baez crushes pitches in the zone. Like many hitters, Baez doesn’t so much crush pitches out of the zone. This, of course, is exactly why hitters go up there looking for a good pitch to hit, in theory. The strike zone is roughly the same as the hitting zone. That’s why it’s the strike zone. According to Baseball Savant, when Baez has hit a batted ball, he’s slugged .817 against would-be strikes, and .397 against would-be balls. Remember, this is when Baez has made contact. He makes more effective contact in the zone. There’s nothing weird about this.

Yet I present Baez in this case as the opposite of Michael Saunders. I wrote about Saunders a few weeks ago, and in there, I pointed out Saunders’ high rate of batted balls against pitches in the zone. In other words, when Saunders has turned pitches around, he’s mostly been turning around strikes, helping him maximize his contact quality. Every leaderboard that has a top has a bottom. Let’s look at the bottom, in terms of batted balls against strikes over all batted balls. I’m using a minimum of 100 batted balls, so you know.

I’m a complete sucker for lists with big gaps. Can’t get enough of them! As you see here, the difference between second-lowest and third-lowest is…well, as seen here, it’s nothing. It’s a tie. There’s not much separating many of these players, and then there’s Baez, in last place by more than six percentage points. Out of Baez’s batted balls, just 47% have come against pitches in the zone. Then there’s the next-closest player, at 54%. That’s laughable, if baseball statistics are ever laughable. Maybe they aren’t? That’s a different post.

I doubt that you just learned anything new about Javier Baez. I mean, you just learned a new fact, but you probably already knew he’s aggressive. Discipline is his problem, as you can see from his contact rates and O-Swing%. But, you know, after Tuesday, Baez is sitting on a 104 wRC+. That puts him right there with names like Todd Frazier and Jason Kipnis. Baez is kind of succeeding like this, and what it really indicates is Baez’s upside if he could ever figure out how to lay off pitchers’ pitches. Over-aggressive hitters usually don’t do that, so I wouldn’t hold my breath. Yet, remember when we all wanted to fall in love with Javier Baez? This is why it’s easy to love him, and this is also why it’s difficult. There’s a special player in there, almost half the time.

A few years ago, I was driving down I-95 just north of Philadelphia when my timing belt broke. I had been happily cruising along in the far left lane of a four-lane road when all of a sudden my dashboard lit up with icons I’d never seen before and, even more alarmingly, my gas pedal refused to tell my car to “Go.” Without any means of acceleration, I somehow navigated my way across four lanes of traffic to the shoulder where my suddenly useless car came to a final stop. It was confusing, frustrating, and a little bit scary. Although I’ve never pitched professionally, I’m struck by a sense that right now Aaron Nola might feel a bit like I did that evening on the side of the road.

Aaron Nola was absolutely cruising. Through his first twelve starts he had a 2.65 ERA which was backed up by peripherals so strong that his FIP (2.77) and xFIP (2.74) provided an extra boost of confidence that, yes, Nola was for real. Then, without any real warning whatsoever, it all fell apart.

For the sake of convenience, let’s call those first 12 starts Nola’s Good Stretch and the most recent five starts his Bad Stretch. Nola has given up more earned runs (27 ER) in his 18-inning Bad Stretch than he did in the entire 78 innings of his Good Stretch (23 ER). That is an intense decline in results and, as a result, the Phillies announced that Nola will skip his final start before the All-Star Break in an effort to give him time to right a path that’s gone horribly awry. But look at a few more numbers across his splits and you’ll notice something a bit curious:

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Ah, this part. I always enjoy this part. Not because I enjoy when superstars struggle, but because I enjoy seeing the standards to which we hold those same superstars. The standards are revealed when people start to worry. Over his last…I don’t know, eight starts, Jake Arrieta has a 3.77 ERA. He’s allowed a slugging percentage of .331. This is Jake Arrieta in a rut. I mean, this really is Jake Arrieta in a rut — people aren’t making up the rut — but you can see how silly reality is. That all-time amazing version of Arrieta became the version we allowed ourselves to take for granted.

But, heck, where’d he go? Arrieta himself would admit he hasn’t been firing on all cylinders. He’d like to pitch better than he has. The Cubs would like him to pitch better than he has. While Arrieta hasn’t been bad, lately he’s fallen short of expectations. And if you examine the record now, you see signs that Arrieta has been off to some degree for several weeks. This isn’t all that recent of a thing.

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With the extended holiday weekend behind us, we get back to the business at hand: our position-by-position look at hitter contact quality. Only three positions to go. Last time, it was left fielders. This time: a fun-filled group of center fielders. As we have in the previous installments, we’ll use granular ball-in-play data, such as BIP type frequencies, exit speed and launch angle to perform this analysis.

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The Royals line-up has been crushed by injuries this year, with Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain both spending chunks of time on the DL, and Mike Moustakas lost for the season due to a torn ACL. Today, the injury bug is apparently moving over to the pitching side of things too.

Wade Davis is going on the disabled list with a right forearm strain. Brooks Pounders is being called up.

— Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) July 5, 2016

On a superficial level, Davis has seemed fine this year, running a 1.23 ERA and converting 19 of 21 save opportunities. But this news probably shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, because there have been some lingering red flags for a while now.

Davis struck out just seven of the 40 batters he faced in June, a remarkably low total for a guy who has been one of the most dominant relievers in baseball for the last few years. Interestingly, though, the other traditional red flag associated with pitcher injuries — velocity decline — has actually not been an issue for Davis. In fact, his velo has been trending up all season.

Of course, the upwards trend is mostly him getting back to where he threw the last few years, as his velocity was down a lot in April and May, so velocity decline was an issue earlier. It’s a bit odd that his strikeouts are disappearing at the same time his velocity is coming back, but given the existence of both issues within the first four months, the fact that he’s headed to the DL makes plenty of sense.

For the Royals, this is a pretty big loss, as Davis has been the anchor of their bullpen, which is really the only thing keeping them in contention at this point. The team has had the worst starting rotation in the AL this season, and their offense isn’t anything special. Without Davis, the team will likely have to shift Kelvin Herrera into the closer role, weakening the team’s middle relief significantly, and they might have a tough time winning as many close games as they have become accustomed to.

Given that the All-Star break is coming up, it is possible that the Royals are just using this timing to give Davis a bit of an extended break — this keeps him from going to San Diego, after all — and perhaps the issue won’t be a long-term concern. But forearm tightness is often a precursor to Tommy John surgery, and if the Royals lose Davis for an extended period, it will be a big blow to their chances to get back to the postseason.

After a promising start to the season, the Red Sox pitching staff is starting to again resemble the disaster that sank the 2015 season. Over the last two weeks, the starting rotation has put up a 6.89 ERA, as David Price‘s disappointing debut season in Boston has continued, Steven Wright’s knuckleball-magic has started to show signs of wearing off, and Clay Buchholz and Eduardo Rodriguez just took turns throwing batting practice. The Red Sox continue to hit well enough to stay in contention, but with the pitching staff imploding once again, even the team’s manager is admitting that it’s “obvious” that the pitching needs upgrading. Despite a thin supply of available arms, it seems pretty clear that Dave Dombrowski is going to be among the most active executives in scouring the market for a starting pitcher over the next month.

But as the team looks to load up for a playoff push, there’s a case to be made that the Red Sox biggest move this summer should be to add another bat to the line-up instead.

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