Of the 338 Triple-A hitters who have recorded at least 200 plate appearances this season, only two have an isolated-power (ISO) mark north of .300. The first is Richie Shaffer, an interesting Rays prospect who spent some time in the big leagues this season. The second is a player by the name of Jabari Blash. No, that’s not a character from Harry Potter, or even an Edith Wharton novel. Jabari Blash is a real, live outfielder in the Mariners organization.

Blash has hit a ridiculous .246/.370/.624 in 50 games at the Triple-A level this year. Prior to that, he slashed a similarly ridiculous .278/.383/.517 in 60 Double-A contests. But it’s his very recent performance that really stands out. Since August 6th, the 6-foot-5 slugger has put together a .292/.395/.785 performance on the strength of his 10 home runs. Those are essentially peak Mark McGwire numbers.

Blash’s stats are great. His downside, however, is that he just turned 26. Players who are 26 don’t normally come up in prospect discussions. Most 26-year-old baseball players are either big leaguers or minor leaguers who aren’t worth thinking twice about. Blash, however, might be worthy of a second thought.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Wild Card races in the American and National Leagues could hardly be more different. Over in the AL, only four teams are playing at a level that would normally make them contenders, but the rules require that a fifth team qualify for the postseason, so one team from a remarkably mediocre group is going to get rewarded with a playoff spot even though they may end the year with 82 or 83 wins. The AL Wild Card game is very likely going to feature one of the weakest postseason teams we’ve seen since the playoffs expanded to include non-division winners.

In the National League, though, the Wild Card game is going to be a clash of the titans. The three best records in the NL all come from the Central division, meaning that the Wild Card game is likely to be a showdown between the Pirates and Cubs, unless one of those two can run down the Cardinals for the division title. There are still other possible outcomes, but most likely, the NL Wild Card game this year will pit two excellent Central division teams against each other, probably for the right to play the NL Central winner in the Division Series.

Meanwhile, the winners of the NL West and NL East — right now, the Dodgers and Mets, who currently hold the fourth and fifth best records in the league — are set to play each other for the right to advance to the NL Championship Series. Because of the playoff structure and the dominance of the Central teams this year, we’re almost guaranteed to only have one team in the NLCS out of the clubs with the three best regular season records, with lesser performing teams getting an easier path to the pennant.

And, understandably, that’s frustrating for anyone rooting for an NL Central club this year. The Wall Street Journal’s Jared Diamond spoke to some of the players on the teams involved, who said things like this:

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Like a lot of people, Wednesday evening I was watching Justin Verlander try his damnedest to no-hit the Angels. I was tuning in because of the pitcher, but in the seventh inning, I found myself thinking about the hitter. It was in the top of the seventh that Verlander faced Mike Trout for what would be the last time, and I was reminded of something Sam Miller pointed out a couple years ago. All it took was one pitch.

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
Chicago NL at San Francisco | 15:45 ET
Haren (148.1 IP, 119 xFIP-) vs. Bumgarner (169.2 IP, 78 xFIP-)
Within the haphazardly derived algorithm used to calculated NERD team scores, the expression intended to represent the “urgency” or perhaps “leverage” of a club’s season — the expression relies on that same club’s divisional-series playoff odds. The closer those odds are to 50% — thereby suggesting greater uncertainty regarding the outcome of their season — the higher the NERD score for the relevant team.

As multiple concerned readers have noted, however, the method isn’t perfect. The Chicago Cubs, for example, possess almost precisely a 50% chance of qualifying for the divisional series at the moment. What they also possess, though, is basically zero probability of winning their division. The Cubs have, essentially, clinched a wild-card spot at this point — and, as such, it’s probably fair to say that their odds of reaching the divisional series (again, at 50%) aren’t reflective of great urgency. Unfortunately, to improve the algorithm at this point would require a close working relationship with tedium, a state which — not unlike polio or carpeting — ought to be eradicated posthaste.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Almost All of Them.

Read the rest of this entry »

I find that writing goes in phases, and they can be unpredictable. I don’t know when it’s going to be a good writing week. I don’t know when it’s going to be a bad writing week. And I don’t know what I’m next going to find interesting. For example, I feel like I spent a good year or two zoning in on pitch-framing, which I thought was just the coolest thing. And my current fascination appears to be player adjustments. That’s good, because players are always adjusting, and it’s bad, because adjustments can be complicated. But I feel like there should be more attention paid to what’s going on underneath, even when the surface numbers seem stable. What’s driving a player’s success or failure? What’s driving his stability?

Adjustment analysis comes in different flavors. Some are more convincing than others. Some are more subtle than others. There are PITCHf/x adjustment analyses. There are mechanical adjustment analyses. And there are just plain ordinary statistical adjustment analyses. Many times, people will argue it’s just an observation of sample-size noise. Definitely, some of the time, that’s true. Other times, the adjustments are real, even if fleeting. And sometimes they’re so significant they just about slap you in the head. You want a story of a player who made an adjustment and kept himself around the top of his game? Embrace the case of Adrian Gonzalez, who is what he was, yet at the same time very much isn’t.

Read the rest of this entry »

The funny thing is, Andrew McCutchen and Starling Marte are so good the Pirates would be in the conversation for baseball’s best outfield no matter who the third guy was. But more often than not, the third guy has been Gregory Polanco, and Polanco came with enormous hype. He’s had his good days and bad days, his good moods and bad moods, but these days Polanco’s on a tear. A few weeks shy of his 24th birthday, Polanco looks like he might be realizing his potential, with power, a quick swing, and a diminishing rate of groundballs. The more Polanco hits, the better off the Pirates are, and the better are the chances that Polanco really is establishing himself as a quality regular.

An interesting thing about Polanco is that, even when his numbers weren’t great, they were well and good against right-handed pitchers. It was lefties who were giving him fits, and while that’s not too uncommon for a young lefty bat, it was clearly a hurdle for Polanco to overcome. As much as the Pirates believe in and practice positional versatility, they still would’ve loved to not have to keep Polanco platooned. This leads to something that’s really encouraging. Polanco’s numbers, lately, are up. So is something else.

Read the rest of this entry »

Astros right hander Francis Martes started the year in extended spring training and Kiley McDaniel had him graded as a 35+ FV. Martes was one of the lesser pieces in the big Jarred Cosart/Colin Moran trade and he was in Rookie-level ball at the time of the trade. From last year to early in 2015, Martes’ velocity jumped, his breaking ball jumped from fringy to at least plus, all of which has helped his above-average changeup play even better. Last week, Kiley graded Martes as the top prospect in the minor leagues that wasn’t in his pre-season Top 200, falling somewhere among the top-50 prospects in baseball and earning at 55 FV grade.

Martes went out to Low-A from extended spring this year, then to the hitter-friendly High-A Cal League where he dominated again until the 19-year-old scorching hot prospect got the promotion to Double-A on Monday. Here’s my observations from two looks at Martes earlier this year in extended spring training, in April/May when his whirlwind season was just getting started and very few scouts were paying attention.

Read the rest of this entry »

Every year, a number of starting pitchers seemingly come out of nowhere to become significant contributors at the major-league level. Sometimes, as in the case of, say, Jacob deGrom, the sudden evolution at the major-league level is real and sustainable. In the case of the majority of these short-term success stories, the league adjusts, the pitcher is unable to, and either disappears from the major-league scene or settles into a lesser role.

Coming into the 2015 season, Brewers right-hander Taylor Jungmann appeared to be little more than a failed first-round pick, with prospects of perhaps a big-league cup of coffee in his future. Instead, he has turned out to be a bright spot in a lost season for the Brew Crew since being summoned to Milwaukee in early June. Has the big righty turned a corner, settling in for a long run in the big club’s rotation? Or is this a short-term mirage, a dream that the big righty might wake up from any moment now?

Read the rest of this entry »