Ben and Sam banter about GM smack talk, then discuss the Mets, Matt Harvey, and innings limits.
Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
With September here, it’s easy to forget about what’s going on with teams toward the bottom of the standings. The rosters have expanded, prospects are getting looks for the teams who are out of contention, and most articles are about playoff races and potential postseason happenings. There’s one issue with overlooking the cellar-dwellers, however: Joey Votto — who is on one of those dwellers — is having a historically great year, and that merits attention.
2015 could easily be the year that forgot about Votto. The Cincinnati Reds are in last place, the NL MVP conversation has been dominated by Bryce Harper since the first month of the season (for good reason), and a number of chronically unsuccessful franchises are looking like they’re headed to the playoffs. This late stage of the season provides a great opportunity to gauge the strength of the storylines during the past few months of baseball, and 2015 has been anything but a disappointment; quite the opposite, in fact.
That makes Votto’s 2015 strangely interesting. In a season that includes the Cubs and Mets succeeding, possibly the best rookie class ever, and a Bryce Harper mega-breakout, Votto is quietly having one of the best offensive seasons for a last place team since 1969, when the divisional era began.
Let’s investigate. First, it’s important to put Votto’s season in context. I’ve pulled the 25-best offensive seasons by wRC+ (a metric that captures a player’s overall offensive output compared to league average) since the year 2000; Votto’s 2015 season currently ranks 19th overall. Take a look:
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet 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 New York AL | 13:05 ET
Chen (160.2 IP, 101 xFIP-) vs. Pineda (128.1 IP, 70 xFIP-)
In addition to featuring (in the Yankees) one half of the league’s most tightly contested division — and also featuring (in Michael Pineda) the majors’ fifth-best starting pitcher by a non-negligible measure — what this game also represents is an opportunity to observe first-hand the Manny Machado Shortstop Experiment. Or, to observe it four times, at least — which is to say, the approximate number of fielding chances the average major-league shortstop receives per game.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Baltimore Radio.
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet 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
Minnesota at Houston | 14:10 ET
Duffey (25.2 IP, 114 xFIP-) vs. Keuchel (192.2 IP, 68 xFIP-)
The first installment in this series was a legitimately entertaining one, featuring a combined 19 strikeouts from the starters, a bases-loaded diving catch by Byron Buxton to end the game, and the highest average leverage index among all Saturday’s contests by some margin — a fact illustrated somewhat unnecessarily by the table below.
| Game | aLI | |
| 1 | MIN @ HOU | 1.74 |
| 2 | TEX @ LAA | 1.36 |
| 3 | TBR @ NYY | 1.29 |
| 4 | MIL @ CIN | 1.25 |
| 5 | LAD @ SDP | 1.23 |
Can one guarantee that this afternoon’s encounter will offer the same combination of thrill and delight? Of course not. Indeed, as research shows, only three things are certain in this world: death, taxes, and uncles who, upon being asked to estimate the likelihood of such-and-such an event, declare that there are only two things which are certain this world.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Television.
Michael Conforto got to the big leagues in a hurry; the 10th overall pick in last year’s draft is already wearing a New York Mets uniform. It fits comfortably. The 22-year-old Oregon State product is hitting a stylish .292/.375/.531, with five long balls, in 112 plate appearances.
Conforto flew through the system this summer, punishing pitchers at two levels before being promoted directly from Double-A. Hoopla accompanied his arrival and he wasted little time justifying the buzz. In his second game, the left-handed-hitting outfielder stroked four hits, including a pair of doubles. He did so with access to data never before at his disposal.
“When I came up, I wanted to use all of it,” Coforto told me on Wednesday. “I wanted to see the heat charts of pitchers, and the percentages of pitches they use in certain counts and with runners on base. Everything. I tried to digest all of the information, but it’s tough to put all of those things into your head and still hit.”
Veteran teammates cautioned the youngster to keep it simple, telling him “You didn’t have those things in the minor leagues and you still hit.” He heeded their advice, but not to the point of eschewing all available data. Read the rest of this entry »
Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet 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
Minnesota at Houston | 19:10 ET
Santana (65.0 IP, 120 xFIP-) vs. McCullers (89.2 IP, 88 xFIP-)
The abstract concept of Decency requires one, somehow finding him- or herself newly in receipt of a time machine, to employ that time machine to the end of traveling back to late-19th century Austria-Hungary and duly offing an infant Adolf Hitler. Following a similar course of action for child Pol Pot and child Stalin might also be regarded as good form. After the most notable of murderous tyrants have been treated thusly, however, one might also consider returning to April 4th of this year and explaining to the people that September 5th’s Twins-Astros game would have some relevance to the postseason landscape. Then, finally — after being derided openly by the public — capture Napoleon from a battlefield and introduce him to a modern water park in California.
Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Television.
Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times, orange for TechGraphs and blue for Community Research.
Read the rest of this entry »
Earlier today, Buster Olney noted on Twitter that the Braves are now pulling up the rear in terms of run differential:
The Braves surpassed the Phillies for the worst run differential in the majors — ATL now -164, PHI -163.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) September 4, 2015
It got me to thinking — a dangerous pastime, I know — that it must be rare that two teams in the same division suck this much at the same time. Turns out, there’s something to that notion. Over at ESPN, we can easily find the run differentials back to 2002. Let’s take a look. Teams in bold are/were in the same division:
| Year | Team 1 | RD | Team 2 | RD | Team 3 | RD | Team 4 | RD | Team 5 | RD |
| 2015 | PHI | -163 | ATL | -164 | ||||||
| 2014 | ||||||||||
| 2013 | MIN | -174 | HOU | -238 | ||||||
| 2012 | CLE | -178 | HOU | -211 | ||||||
| 2011 | BAL | -152 | MIN | -185 | HOU | -181 | ||||
| 2010 | BAL | -172 | KC | -169 | SEA | -185 | PIT | -279 | ||
| 2009 | KC | -156 | WAS | -164 | ||||||
| 2008 | WAS | -184 | ||||||||
| 2007 | TB | -162 | ||||||||
| 2006 | TB | -167 | KC | -214 | ||||||
| 2005 | TB | -186 | KC | -233 | ARI | -160 | ||||
| 2004 | KC | -185 | CIN | -157 | ARI | -284 | ||||
| 2003 | DET | -337 | MIL | -159 | CIN | -191 | SD | -160 | ||
| 2002 | TB | -245 | KC | -154 | DET | -289 | MIL | -194 | SD | -153 |
A couple of things to note. First, last season was pretty cool, because no one was super awful. That doesn’t happen all that often. But two teams being this bad at the same time in the same division hasn’t happened since 2003. Brewers fans will remember 2003 as the year before Ben Sheets was awesome. Reds fans will remember 2003 as the year when Ken Griffey Jr. was awesome but frequently injured. Well, I guess that was most years Griffey was in Cincy. In any case, things weren’t pretty in either city. Adam Dunn rankled old school devotees with a .215 batting average, Wayne Franklin started 34 games and (I’m just guessing here) a lot of brain cells were murdered with alcohol.
Things haven’t been much better in Atlanta and Philly this season. They’re the first two teams to be this bad in the same division in over a decade. That’s rare. But at least they can take comfort in a couple of things. First, they’re not the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked — do you see that 2003 Tigers run differential? Woof! Second, at least they know that they are not alone. And that’s something. After all, misery needs company.
A home run is generally the result of a one-on-one battle between pitcher and hitter. A pitcher throws the ball, the batter hits it, and all the other players are more or less observers as the ball sails out of the park. Weather and park factors play a role in whether the ball leaves the yard. An outfielder might give chase. Then teammates show elation or disgust depending on the side of the battle where they are aligned. An inside-the-park home run is not like those other home runs. An inside-the-park home run needs this:
The Mets closer has a new pitch, and it is fantastic. A 95 mph split-finger fastball is already superlative by name, but when you drill down into the arsenal of Jeurys Familia, it starts to look unique… and unfair.
But first we must appreciate the pitch in all its GIF glory.