FanGraphs Baseball

Wins across the National League and American League aren’t distributed equally. Looking at both current wins and our projected expected wins, the NL has more teams at the extreme ends of the wins spectrum, while the AL is more tightly grouped. The shape of the win distribution is useful because it can create a picture of the league. The AL has 20 more interleague wins than the NL due to the 140-120 AL-NL interleague record, so the AL’s distribution is shifted slightly higher than the NL’s. But the NL’s distribution is more spread out with more teams having either really good records or really poor records. Interestingly enough, one division, the National League Central, has the top three teams, Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs, in its league.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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A few months ago, someone asked me who the most underrated player in baseball was, and after kicking around a few names, I settled on Arizona outfielder A.J. Pollock. Pollock got to the big leagues as a speed-and-defense center fielder who hit well enough to justify a regular gig, and then had his breakout year derailed last season when Johnny Cueto hit him in the hand with a fastball. Since he missed roughly half the season, it was easy to overlook his offensive improvements, but Pollock carried the added power and improved contact rate over to this season, and has developed into one of the very best outfielders in all of baseball.

But Pollock’s 2015 season has been so good that it’s hard to call him the game’s most underrated player anymore. After all, he made the All-Star team this year, and thanks to a .325 average and a decent likelihood of being honored with a Gold Glove at years end, he’s not really flying under the radar anymore. Like Ben Zobrist and Bobby Abreu, Pollock might have been mentioned as the game’s most underrated player so many times that he’s now being properly rated.

But even with Pollock’s graduation to stardom now being pretty widely accepted, I still think the game’s most underrated player might be an outfielder for the Diamondbacks. This time, I’m going with Pollock’s teammate David Peralta.

Read the rest on Just a Bit Outside.

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With the Cubs in San Francisco to face the team just behind them in the wild-card race, it makes sense to compare the two managers. After all, they both ended up within the top five in a recent ESPN.com survey, and their teams have both found success in recent years. Though they were born just a year apart, their styles are different enough that they seem to be a study in contrasts.

Who better to ask about what makes them great than their own players and coaches and beat writers? Well, maybe unbiased observers can be more critical than our sample, but the task at hand is to delineate the managers’ strengths.

So, what makes Bruce Bochy great? What makes Joe Maddon great?

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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
Houston at New York AL | 13:05 ET
McHugh (159.0 IP, 100 xFIP-) vs. Pineda (118.0 IP, 71 xFIP-)
On the edition of FanGraphs Audio released this actual morning, the author mentioned that a friend of his — the sort of friend, specifically, who’s had two children over the last four years and whose relationship with the Pastime has suffered duly — would be attending today’s Astros-Yankees game. What follows is a brief collection of statements designed to provide context for a spectator of that same contest who also has no idea what’s going on.

• Both the Astros and Yankees currently possess better than a 50% chance of reaching the divisional series.
• New York’s success has been facilitated in no small part by the unexpectedly robust contributions of Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira.
• Houston’s success, meanwhile, has been facilitated largely by players who are 25 and under.
• Yes, seriously, the Astros.
• By multiple standards, Houston and New York both possess among the top bullpens in the league, if that’s interesting at all.
• Probably avoid staring directly into Carlos Correa’s extraordinary talent.
• You might never return.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Houston Television.

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