FanGraphs Baseball

Rangers RHP Michael Matuella entered his junior year at Duke as a candidate for the first overall selection in the 2015 draft. A torn UCL in March of that year dashed those hopes and Matuella eventually fell all the way to the Rangers at 78th overall. He signed for a $2 million and had been rehabbing in Arizona until Wednesday, when he faced opposing hitters for the first time in an Extended Spring Training game against the Reds.

Matuella threw his fastball at 93-96 mph after having also sat in that range during live batting practice for me last week. He threw a few curveballs in the low 80s — all below average — and his arm action lacked conviction. This was an issue for Matuella when I saw him throw that live BP session last week, as well, and coaches both then and today were urging him to “pull down” to create more downward spin on the breaking ball. During live BP, Matuella made the adjustment and his curveball was subsequently more effective. Wednesday, in just two innings of work — the first of which was fastball-only — he didn’t really have the opportunity to make the same sort of adjustment. I think that, with a combination of additional reps and greater confidence in the health of his arm, Matuella’s curve will develop into an above average — and potentially plus — pitch.

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The current major-league leader in WAR for a catcher is Jonathan Lucroy. All right! Go home, we’re finished.

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PJ Conlon doesn’t fit the profile of a New York Mets starter. The defending National League champions have a rotation populated by deGroms, Harveys and Syndergaards. Conlon, meanwhile, isn’t a power arm. The 22-year-old pitching prospect is your prototypical finesse lefty who relies more on guile than gas.

Twenty-seven games into his professional career, Conlon resembles a half-his-age Jamie Moyer. He looks hittable, but squaring him up is often an exercise in futility. Since being drafted in the 13th round last year out of the University of San Diego, Conlon has allowed a grand total of nine earned runs in 84 innings. On Saturday, he took the hill for the Low-A Columbia Fireflies and breezed through 10 innings on just 97 pitches. He flirted with a no-hitter and held Hagerstown to a lone tally.

Soon after that start, Conlon was named to the South Atlantic League’s mid-season All-Star team. He leads the circuit in both wins and ERA, and ranks second in WHIP.

Conlon was featured in this past Sunday’s Notes column, with his Irish heritage being the main focus (he was born in Belfast). Today we hear from the southpaw on his pitching prowess.

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Conlon on pitching: “I’d describe myself as a shorter lefty who doesn’t have great velocity. I’m about 6-foot and will top out at 91 on a good day. I’m usually between 87-90, but I can run the ball and do different things with it. I don’t really throw anything straight.

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It’s probably no secret that, when the Blue Jays decided to try Aaron Sanchez as a starter, we were skeptics. It was nothing against Sanchez personally; from my perspective, at least, it was really quite simple. As a starter in the past, Sanchez never threw enough strikes. Big velocity and everything, but, not enough strikes. Most of the time, pitchers who struggle with strikes continue to struggle with strikes. It was just a way of playing the odds. So often, wishing for a pitcher to show better control is like wishing for a hitter to show better discipline. Those improvements are relatively rare.

They do happen, though, and often enough that optimism isn’t unwarranted. The Blue Jays wanted to see if Sanchez would find a way to more consistently own the zone. With strikes, Sanchez would have significant upside. The Jays went for it, and, wouldn’t you know it, but Sanchez has been utterly fantastic. Last year’s starting experiment is now a distant memory, as Sanchez is in the process of establishing himself as one of the more electric young starters in the league.

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Ben and Sam banter about the brawl between the Orioles and Royals, then answer listener emails about Clayton Kershaw, Jon Lester, beating the shift, and how bad they would be at calling balls and strikes.

Today, MLB Advanced Media is making a pretty exciting announcement, as they’ve brought in Tom Tango — who created many of the metrics we use here on FanGraphs, and is probably the closest thing this generation has had to Bill James in terms of advancing the understanding of the game — to serve as their Senior Database Architect of Stats. In other words, he’ll help facilitate the development and deployment of Statcast data.

While the league has previously been somewhat reserved in discussions about which direction they would take this technology, the fact that MLB has brought in one of the game’s most respected public analysts, and is putting him in a position to develop tools for the public, seems like a great sign for the future of the data.

To help put some context behind this announcement, I conducted a Q&A with Tango via email last week, and I think his answers were quite encouraging. Our conversation is below, and if you’re interested in hearing more, Tango also recorded an episode of the Statcast Podcast with Mike Petriello, which will be up shortly. On to the Q&A.

DC: First off, congratulations on the new gig.

TT: Thank you, I’ve been waiting for this day to officially arrive.

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The amateur draft is just one day away, and it’s still unclear whom the Phillies plan to take first overall. One player who’s vaulted himself into top-five consideration, and might even be in the mix for 1-1, is Kyle Lewis, an outfielder from Mercer University. Lewis’ stat line is about as good you’ll see from a college hitter: .395/.535/.731. But there’s a catch: he’s a product of the Southern Conference, which churns out very few big leaguers and features a rather low level of competition.

Lewis’ competition level makes it a bit difficult to gauge just how good he is, especially from a statistical standpoint. Yes, .395/.535/.731 is a very good stat line, but it isn’t immediately clear how that compares to Corey Ray’s .319/.396/.562 performance in the ACC — a conference that is likely chock-full of future professional ballplayers.

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After just two pitches on Wednesday, Vince Velasquez had to be removed. Sometimes, when a pitcher gets injured, you don’t really see the symptoms. Maybe there’s a little wiggling of the arm, or stretching of the shoulder. With Velasquez, it was immediately apparent something was wrong. The first pitch he threw:

That’s a fastball, at 86. The second pitch he threw:

That’s a fastball, at 87, and while Velasquez got the out, it was also the end of his outing. He didn’t seem to protest too much when he was visited on the mound, or when he was removed, and we already have some early word on the issue.

Phillies say Vince Velasquez left the game with right biceps soreness.

— Matt Breen (@matt_breen) June 8, 2016

For a little extra detail:

There were concerns about Velasquez’s shoulder when trade was made last December. https://t.co/o8AUtT3cHx

— Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) June 8, 2016

Nobody knows yet exactly what this means, though I might as well point out the Dodgers put Yimi Garcia on the DL with right biceps soreness toward the end of April. He’s out indefinitely, having been moved from the 15-day DL to the 60-day variety. Sometimes biceps soreness can be nothing, but other times, it can indicate a major complication, and you never want to see a power pitcher working eight ticks below where he usually is. Especially a power pitcher with Velasquez’s own injury history.

He’s already undergone Tommy John once, and his list of historical injuries is longer than that. This has always been the one big downside, the one reason Velasquez was ever available in a trade in the first place. For as long as Velasquez has been throwing, no one has doubted the quality of his stuff. But the Astros were unconvinced he could keep himself healthy, and the Phillies assumed the risk. When Velasquez is able to throw like he did against San Diego, the Phillies look like geniuses, but this is the coldest splash of cold water. It’s always been about health, and now Velasquez isn’t healthy.

With luck, he’ll be healthy again soon. In the best-case scenario, Velasquez requires just a little rest, and to be realistic the Phillies were going to have to limit his innings this season anyway. There’s a way for this to work out for everyone. Yet there’s definitely nothing good about a pitcher needing to be removed, and for now, the Phillies are holding their breath. Velasquez has provided an enormous reason to believe the team might be close to returning to relevance. He’s been one of the bright spots, and for as long as Velasquez is sidelined, the rebuild is a little off-track. Baseball continues to occasionally be a real son of a bitch.

If you hit 10 home runs in 15 games for an awful, last-place team, will anyone notice? What if you hit 10 home runs in 15 games after entering the season with just eight major-league homers to your name — will anyone notice then? These are the questions Adam Duvall is asking the baseball world right now. While spending his first season as a major-league regular in the relative baseball obscurity that is 2016 Cincinnati, the 27-year-old Duvall is suddenly begging the baseball world to take notice. Well, we see you, Adam, and we want to get to know you better.

Power has always been the key component to Duvall’s game. He has 130 career minor-league home runs, most of which came during his time with the Giants organization. In June 2014, during Duvall’s major-league debut, he homered off Reds pitcher Mike Leake. Just over a year later, the Reds traded Leake to the Giants and in return received none other than Adam Duvall in return. As a September call-up for Cincinnati last fall, Duvall made an early case for the 2016 everyday left-field job, recording five home runs in just 72 plate appearances. This spring, he officially won the job over guys like Jake Cave, Scott Schebler, and Kyle Waldrop. So far, it sure looks like the Reds made the right decision.

Duvall’s current hot streak is part of a larger season-long trend of tremendous power-hitting — historically tremendous power-hitting, even. Of his 50 hits this season, 31 have been of the extra-base variety — 17 home runs and 14 doubles – which gives Duvall a 62.0% extra-base hit rate. In the modern era (since 1901), only two players have posted a higher XBH/H% over a full season: 2010 Jose Bautista (62.2%) and, naturally, 2001 Barry Bonds (68.6%).

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Happy Jameson Taillon Day to you and yours!

The right-handed prospect is set to debut for the Pirates tonight in their game against the Mets. This has been a long time coming for Taillon, who was selected second overall way back in 2010. He sat out the entirety of the 2014 and 2015 seasons following Tommy John and then hernia surgery, but has pitched better than ever in Triple-A this year.

In 10 Triple-A starts this season, he’s recorded a dazzling 1.93 FIP, striking out 26% of opposing hitters and walking a mere 3%. Running those numbers through the KATOH machine, I get a projection of 7.9 WAR for Taillon over the next six seasons, which would have placed him fifth among pitchers on KATOH’s preseason list. Given his recent performance, there’s little reason to think Taillon won’t succeed in the show. In order to account for Taillon’s missed development time, it might make sense to knock a year off of his age when calculating his projection. Running him as a 23-year-old rather than a 24-year-old yields a forecast of 10.7 WAR.

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