Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Marlins’ winning record against the Yankees, Ty Cobb and Kyle Stowers, the Blue Jays’ demolition of the Rockies, pocket pancakes, and more. Then (38:19) they answer listener emails about a CBT exemption for World Series winners, celebrations in the pitch clock era, nonpartisan bullpens, a humorous shirsey, batter no-outers, and September roster expansion, plus Stat Blasts (1:26:50) about extreme ball/strike throwers, road-only HR hitters, no-walkoff teams, unusual scoring, and old pitcher/catcher + pitcher/batter combos.

Audio intro: Kite Person, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Marlins vs. Yankees
Link to wins since 1993
Link to Leerhsen’s Cobb book
Link to Ringer MLB Show
Link to HoF site on Cobb
Link to Wright on Cobb 1
Link to Wright on Cobb 2
Link to Wright on Cobb 3
Link to Wright on Cobb 4
Link to Wright on Cobb 5
Link to Wright on Cobb 6
Link to Wright on Cobb 7
Link to Wright on Cobb 8
Link to Wright on Cobb 9
Link to Ben on Ichiro power
Link to E. coli outbreak
Link to dysentery report
Link to Oregon Trail meme
Link to Jays fun facts
Link to run differential data
Link to FG’s The Board
Link to Buxton cycle
Link to Buxton images
Link to Twins summer sausage
Link to pocket pancake video
Link to Bellinger violation
Link to pitch clock extension
Link to strike% data
Link to ball% data
Link to road homers sheet
Link to runs matching innings sheet
Link to 2007 Sox-Yanks game
Link to 2013 Sox-M’s game
Link to 1979 Phils-Cubs game
Link to 2008 Marlins Rockies game
Link to 1925 Sox-Tigers game
Link to Quinn-Schang game
Link to Clemens-Franco game
Link to listener emails database
Link to all-triples games

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Friends, Red Sox fans, FanGraphs readers, lend me your ears,
I come to analyze the contract extension, not to bemoan it.
The free agency status that teams despise lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their luxury tax penalties.

Here, under leave of Meg and the rest,
For they are honorable editors,
Come ZiPS to speak at Anthony’s signing,
It is my computer, faithful and just to me.

While the Red Sox have quite the mixed record of letting players leave in free agency or trading them before they can sign elsewhere, the organization has been fairly aggressive at signing players with limited service time in order to buy out free agent years in advance. Brayan Bello is signed through 2030, at least if a club option is picked up, and both Kristian Campbell and Ceddanne Rafaela, well short of arbitration status, are under club control into the 2030s. When the Red Sox acquired Garrett Crochet, they didn’t muck around either, making sure he’d be kept in town on a six-year, $170 million contract extension that he signed a few months after the trade.

Now it’s Roman Anthony’s turn. The guaranteed portion of the contract calls for $130 million over eight years, beginning next season, with $125 million total in salary through the 2023 campaign and a $5 million buyout on a $30 million club option for 2034. If the Red Sox pick up the option, the total value of the deal would be nine years and $155 million. There is also a Halloween bucket full of various incentives that could net Anthony a maximum $230 million over the next nine years. However, that high-end figure will be quite hard to meet. As MassLive’s Chris Cotillo points out, for Anthony to earn that $230 million maximum, he would have to finish top two in the Rookie of the Year voting this season, make the All-Star team in all eight seasons of the extension and also in the option year, and win the next nine MVP awards — one for every year of the extension, plus the option season. Nobody has ever won nine MVPs; Barry Bonds has the most, with seven. So, in order to hit every incentive in his new contract, Anthony would have to become, without exaggeration, the best baseball player ever. If, in the pretty-much-impossible event that this happens, the Red Sox would be getting literally the greatest of all time for less money than the Angels are paying Anthony Rendon. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Jose Altuve has been doing the same thing for a long time now. The 35-year-old Astro is closing in on 250 career home runs despite the fact that he’s never possessed the look, or even the swing, of a traditional slugger. Altuve has never hit the ball hard and has always chased a bit more than you’d like, but he’s excellent at making contact, which helps him avoid strikeouts, and he’s excellent at pulling the ball in the air, which helps him make the most of that contact. Altuve has ridden those pulled fly balls to a career 114 SLG+ and 101 ISO+. If we start in 2015, the beginning of the Statcast era and the year he really started to focus on lifting and pulling, those numbers are 119 and 113. This year, however, for the first time, I’m genuinely starting to wonder how Altuve is still doing it.

Altuve is running an average exit velocity of just 85 mph. Here’s what that looks like in the context of his career. It’s the lowest mark he’s ever put up by nearly a full mile per hour, and it’s 1.5 mph off the average he put up just last year:

Those numbers look even more stark when we put them in the context of the rest of the league. Altuve is running the second-lowest average exit velocity among all qualified batters. Think of any slap-happy contact hitter – Luis Arraez, Jacob Wilson, Sal Frelick, Geraldo Perdomo – Altuve has a lower average exit velocity than all of them. But like clockwork, Altuve is still running a 120 wRC+ and batting .280. With 19 home runs, he’s on pace for 27, the highest mark he’s put up since 2022. Altuve is still lifting and pulling, lifting and pulling, making contact, avoiding strikeouts, rinse and repeat, even though his contact quality has dropped to about as low as you can possibly imagine. Read the rest of this entry »

Prior to batting practice, pitchers stroll onto the outfield grass to play catch with each other. Keeping their arms loose is a primary objective of what’s known as “catch play,” but there is more to it than just that. As a rule, the pitchers are throwing with purpose, both in terms of velocity and making sure that their mechanics are in order. At times they are also tinkering with grips, trying to find — or rediscover — desired movement on a specific pitch. And then there is long toss. While not all pitchers employ the practice, it is common to see crow-hop throws from foul line to deep center field. One thing you’ll rarely see is the casual tossing of a baseball back and forth.

How do pitchers get paired up for catch play? Does it differ for starters and relievers? What knowledge can be gleaned from these partnerships? Are there teammates you would rather not have as a throwing partner, because they’re especially challenging to catch?

With those questions in mind, I talked to three starters (Garrett Crochet, Seth Lugo, and Michael Wacha), two relievers (Liam Hendriks and Kirby Yates) a position player turned reliever (Lucas Erceg), a pitcher turned pitching coach (Mark Prior), a pair of pitchers turned broadcasters (Jeff Montgomery and Steve Sparks, and a longtime bullpen catcher (Javier Bracamonte).

———

Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox left-hander:

“Greg Weissert is my catch partner right now. Honestly, it kind of happened out of necessity. It was Justin Slaten for awhile, but Slaten went down [with an injury]. I was playing catch with our bullpen catcher for awhile, but I prefer to throw with another pitcher. Typically, starters either play catch with each other or with a bullpen catcher. In Chicago [with the White Sox], it was mostly a bullpen catcher for me.

“When I was coming out of the bullpen in 2021, I was throwing with Michael Kopech and everything was just real hard and real scary. Sometimes with Weisert it gets that way, too, especially with the curveball he throws. It’s different for Greg and myself, too, because he has to be ready to pitch every day, whereas I don’t. I’m probably the one that he hates to catch. But no, he loves it. He’ll get down on one knee, use a catcher’s mitt, catch flat-grounds. It’s cool. I try to get after it as much as my body allows me to. Read the rest of this entry »

Bo Bichette went 2-for-6 with a three-run homer in Toronto’s 20-1 win over the Rockies on Wednesday afternoon. Business as usual.

Over the past month, Bichette has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball. Over his past 27 games, he is 46-for-115, bringing his batting average for the season to .301. This hot streak coincides broadly with a move down the lineup for the 27-year-old shortstop, from getting on base in front of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to being tasked with driving him in. And because Guerrero is on base quite a bit, Bichette is also among the leaders in RBI in that span, with 27 in that 27-game run.

It’s gone under the radar a little, what with the Red Sox setting the world on fire, but Bichette’s Blue Jays have had a good month and change. Toronto is 24-10 since June 28, which is the second-best record in the American League behind Boston’s. In that time, the Jays have been the highest-scoring team in baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re a fan of a large-market team that has recently been struggling to score runs, you may be eligible for compensation. Wait, no – that’s not right. You may be eligible to complain about your team in my weekly chat? Not quite it, either. Let’s try it one more time… If you’re a fan of a large-market team that has recently been struggling to score runs, you are eligible to read this article and see to what extent your team has let you down and to what extent it’s just a narrative.

The Yankees and Mets have been having a tough time of late, which always brings out doubters, both fans and rivals. I don’t quite know what to tell those grumpy souls. You’re upset with the Yankees offense? Well yes, sure, absolutely, carry on, but they do have the highest team wRC+ in baseball. The Mets let you down? Without a doubt, they’re the Mets, so on and so forth – but they’re top 10 in baseball in wRC+, too. Orioles offense bumming you out? Yeah, I mean, they’ve been a bummer, but they’ve also been impacted by injuries, which seems hard to blame them for.

I came up with a quantitative test for how much teams have disappointed relative to preseason expectations. I took the actual playing time that each team has allocated so far. Then, I used preseason projections to come up with the offensive numbers we’d expect from each team given who has played and how good we projected them to be. I compared that to how good the team has actually been. The difference between those two numbers is the aggregate overachievement or underperformance that can’t be attributed to injury.
Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about umpire Jen Pawol’s promotion to the majors, whether the MLB Speedway Classic lived up to its name, Nathan Eovaldi’s Gibsonian season, another big blow to the practice of pitcher hitting, a “breakout” question, an optimistic Twins take, the Yankees’ concerning (to Yankees fans) slide, Roman Anthony’s extension, whether MLB’s playoff picture is boring, Andrew Vaughn’s hot hitting, and the accuracy of a baseball scene on The Gilded Age.

Audio intro: Ian Phillips, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Liz Panella, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Rockies comeback
Link to Pawol news
Link to Speedway Classic problems
Link to Speedway Classic record
Link to Gibson/Eovaldi stat
Link to Central League news
Link to Central League stats
Link to Ben on pitcher hitting
Link to Adell breakout post
Link to Sheehan on the Twins
Link to Paine on the Yankees
Link to BaseRuns records
Link to FG playoff odds
Link to team baserunning
Link to team defense
Link to Sam on hustle
Link to Ben on hustle
Link to team wins since June 1
Link to MLBTR on Anthony
Link to Vaughn leaderboard
Link to Davy on the playoff odds
Link to TGA question
Link to TGA episode
Link to Richard’s Strike Four
Link to SP FIP stat
Link to notable episodes list

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While he went 0-for-3 in New York’s shutout loss, the Yankees breathed a sigh of relief last night as Aaron Judge returned from the IL after a mercifully short stint. Since debuting in the majors, Judge has been an offensive powerhouse, but one who got off to a relatively late start and endured plenty of injury misfortune. Go back five years, and the big question was whether he could stay healthy enough for the Yankees to plan around him, not what the numbers on his Cooperstown plaque would be should he manage a long big league career. Now, the idea of him not making the Hall of Fame seems like a charmingly naïve anachronism, a bit like wondering if Netflix would be able to survive the shift to streaming.

In the last four-plus seasons, Judge has hit 233 home runs, almost tripling his career total, and has seemingly destroyed what appeared to be the modern ceiling for obtainable WAR from a hitter who doesn’t also pitch in his spare time. It now looks like Judge may be up to 400 career homers well before the end of next season. So just where is his ceiling now? And can anyone challenge him as the Chief Justice of the Longball for this generation?

Let’s go back to 2020 for a minute. I fired up the ZiPS projection system and asked the computer to provide me with Judge’s career projections after that season. While he had always been a feared hitter, winning AL Rookie of the Year honors in 2017, he was just finishing his age-28 season and had only played one actual full season in the majors. And despite having a 52-home run campaign in his rear view, his career total of 119 homers was relatively pedestrian, behind players like Maikel Franco, Rob Deer, and Randal Grichuk through the same age. Judge didn’t do any better by the fancy-pantséd numbers, ranking 488th all-time in WAR through age 28, and that’s just the position players. The ZiPS projection for him at the time told the tale of an extremely talented slugger who couldn’t stay on the field, one who, if he proved especially unfortunate in the years to come, might not get the 5% of the vote necessary to stay on the Hall of Fame ballot. Read the rest of this entry »

I used to have a bit that one of the joys of the postseason was watching the wider baseball-watching public discover a previously unknown Rays pitcher when he mowed down the Astros in the first nationally televised game of his career.

It’s a little harder to pull that off as a position player: Go from complete unknown to key regular on a playoff team. In fact, a lot of the most important position players in this pennant race — Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Schwarber, Manny Machado — were names before they even joined their current teams.

On the other hand, you’d be forgiven for not knowing Isaac Collins. Read the rest of this entry »