FanGraphs Baseball

Shortly before the season began, I wrote a post in which I identified minor leaguer hitters who saw stark decreases in their Zone% in the final month of the 2014 season. This research was meant to emulate work done by Rob Arthur, who found that hitters who saw fewer pitches down the heart of the plate late in the year often outperformed their projections the following season. The player who jumped out most from my analysis was Richard Shaffer — a former first round pick in the Rays organization who had fallen on hard times since his draft year.

I wrote a follow-up piece on Shaffer a few days later, noting that his plummeting Zone% wasn’t the only reason to think he might have turned a corner. He had also reportedly made some adjustments, which were acknowledged by people in the Rays organization and by Shaffer himself. And perhaps most importantly, he raked over the season’s final month. He hit .357/.486/.768 with six homers over his final 17 games. To wit.

A little more than a month later, those adjustments seem to be working. Through 25 games, Shaffer’s belted 6 homers, and holds a 147 wRC+ in Double-A. His .260/.363/.490 triple slash is a far cry from the .222/.318/.440 he posted at the same level last season.

Lead prospect analyst Kiley McDaniel had the chance to see Shaffer in action multiple times this year, and was able to confirm that Shaffer indeed looks like a different player. Kiley noted that Shaffer seemed much more relaxed and comfortable at the plate than he was last season and didn’t seem quite as worried about his mechanics. He noted that the bat speed looked the same, but that Shaffer’s doing a better job of crushing mistakes and not guessing on pitches.

Kiley said he’d now put the 24-year-old ahead of fellow Rays third base prospect Patrick Leonard, who managed to crack the ranked portion of his list. He now sees Shaffer as a 40 FV player, who could wind up providing value as a part-time corner infielder. That’s not super exciting, but it’s a useful player. As recently as last summer, Richie Shaffer looked like an extreme long shot to ever become a productive big leaguer. Now, it seems like a strong possibility.

Before his start on Thursday in Milwaukee, Dodgers right-hander Carlos Frias — celebrated on multiple occasions by the present author in these same pages — Dodgers right-hander Carlos Frias had thrown 110 pitches over three appearances, including a 70-pitch start on May 1st against Arizona.

Over the course of those three appearances, Frias’s fastball sat at about 96 mph — unsurprising, that figure, given both his scouting reports and also his previous work in the majors. More notable with regard to those first 110 pitches was this, though: the absolute slowest among them was a changeup he’d thrown at 88.9 mph to David Peralta on May 1st.

This changeup:

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As we move into May and people start to check our WAR leaderboards, there will inevitably be a discussion about why certain players rank highly, especially if they aren’t putting up big offensive numbers. Most of the time, that discussion revolves around the player’s defensive value; For example, last August, Alex Gordon sat on top of our WAR leaderboards, which generated a fair amount of controversy at the time.

Here at FanGraphs, we use Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) as the fielding component of WAR. UZR is one of two defensive run estimators we host here on the site, the other being Defensive Runs Saved (DRS). Both metrics go beyond traditional fielding stats using the same Baseball Information Solutions (BIS) data set to assign runs to players by dividing the field into different areas and then comparing each play to a league average. At FanGraphs, we don’t have UZR values for catchers or pitchers, so those positions are simply removed from any data visualizations in this post. We also have great library entries that go over the minutiae of the metrics better than I can in this post.

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Mike Foltynewicz’s future role for the Atlanta Braves is still in doubt. He brings a high-90s four-seam fastball that should play well out of the bullpen or as a starter, but his secondary offerings might not be good enough to consistently get hitters out at the Major League Baseball level. Acquired in a trade for Evan Gattis in the offseason, Foltynewicz has started two games for the Braves this season after 16 bullpen appearances for the Houston Astros last season. Results have been mixed thus far. In 10 1/3 innings this year, Foltynewicz has struck out nine but walked six, giving up seven runs and averaging an unsustainable 19 pitches per inning. Foltynewicz will need to be more efficient if he is to remain a starter, and the increased use of his sinker his second start of the season provides him with weapons to get quicker outs, more strikes, and help set up his big fourseam fastball and still-developing slider.

Foltynewicz’s fourseam fastball has been the 23-year-old’s bread and butter, sitting “95-98 mph and has hit 100 mph as a starter” per Kiley McDaniel’s write-up in his analysis of the Braves prospects. Last season in relief, Foltynewicz used his fastball roughly 50% of the time, averaging 98 miles per hour out of the bullpen, per Brooks Baseball. He mixed in a curve, sinker, and change, but did not throw any of those offerings more than one quarter of the time.

In his first start of the season against the Cincinnati Reds, he relied on his fastball even more than 2014, throwing 60 four-seam fastballs among his 94 pitches. He might not have had the feel for his change as he threw that pitch just four times in the outing, mixing in a curve and sinker for his remaining pitches. For Foltynewicz’s four-seamer to be successful, it likely needs to stay up in the zone to get swings and misses. Here is the pitch plot from his first start.

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Andrew McCutchen has been bad. I think I’m allowed to say that. Used to be, it was just a bad start. It’s still a bad start, but we’re a week into May, so that “just” is disappearing by the second. Attention to this thing is warranted.

Now, at any given time, lots of baseball players are in the midst of being bad. What’s weird about McCutchen being bad, in particular, is that he’s usually not. He goes beyond just being an All-Star; he’s one of the five best players in the game today. The spotlight shines a little brighter, and so when things are going awry, people notice.

How much do I need to go over, here? I know McCutchen’s numbers are bad. You know McCutchen’s numbers are bad. I don’t need to review a ton of information proving as much. Here, let’s just look at one graph. As I write this, McCutchen has played 26 games in 2015. Below, his whole career, in rolling 26-game stretches of OPS. Pretty simple measure of hot streaks and cold spells:

Two things to take from that. One, McCutchen has had bad 26-game stretches before. They’ve just been tucked into the middle of seasons, rather than being right at the start, all conspicuous-like. Two, McCutchen has been quite bad this season. As far as the graph above is concerned, McCutchen has achieved a career minimum. It’s not proof that something’s wrong, but it’s enough to make you wonder.

Read the rest at Just A Bit Outside.

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Carlos Gonzalez is slumping. That isn’t news to you, unless you don’t really pay that much attention to the Colorado Rockies. Even then, it still might not be news to you. Gonzalez, who from 2010-2013 hit 108 homers (tied for 18th-best in the game), and posted a .245 ISO (ninth-best) and 103.4 Off (13th-best), is knee deep in a slump that seemingly has no end. If true, the question then becomes what do the Rockies do with him, because it might be impossible to trade him.

First, let’s see if we can figure out what exactly the issues are. Let’s begin with batted ball distance. Jeff Zimmerman has set up his handy batted ball distance search over at Baseball Heat Maps, and here we see that for the first five years of Gonzalez’s time with the Rockies, his was fairly consistent. He was right around 300 feet each season, with an overall average of 309.277′. Last year, that dropped quite a bit, down to 295.891′, and this season he is at 280.565. That’s nearly a 30 foot drop over the span of two seasons. Perhaps not predictive of how he will fare for the remainder of 2015, but it’s certainly not a great sign.

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Devised originally in response to a challhenge 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
Oakland at Seattle | 22:10 ET
Gray (43.0 IP, 98 xFIP-) vs. Walker (22.2 IP, 120 xFIP-)
Seattle right-hander Taijuan Walker hasn’t provided much in the way of performance this season. The ERA is unsightly (as exhibited by the 222 ERA-), nor are the fielding-independent numbers distinguished for their world-famous sightliness, at this point (as exhibited by the 138 FIP- and 120 xFIP-). The projections suggest, however, that Walker will improve on all those numbers. And in terms of aesthetics, he offers the following collection of charms: considerable youth, plus velocity, and enough command not to render it all moot. Also, he works at a pace (19.5 seconds between pitches) nearly a standard deviation faster than the average starter.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Oakland Radio.

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I wrote yesterday about the uncertainty surrounding the #1 overall pick, but that doesn’t keep scouts from trying to figure out who will go in the subsequent picks. It’s way too early to have any real idea what’s going to happen beyond the top 10-15 picks, but the buzz is growing in the scouting community about how things will play out and you people are sustained by lists, predictions and mock drafts. You’re welcome.

I’d bet it’s more telling on draft day to make judgments using the buzz and all the names I mention, rather than the one name I project to be picked, but you guys already don’t read the introduction, so I’ll shut up. For reports, video and more on these players, check out my latest 2015 MLB Draft rankings, or, if your team doesn’t pick high this year, look ahead with my 2016 & 2017 MLB Draft rankings.

UPDATE 5/11/15: Notes from this weekend’s college games: Dillon Tate was solid in front of GM’s from Arizona, Houston and Colorado. Dansby Swanson was even better, in front of decision makers from all the top teams, including Houston, who may still be debating whether they’d take Swanson or Rodgers if given the choice (Rodgers’ season is over). Carson Fulmer did what he usually does and probably has a home from picks 7-17 depending on how things fall on draft day, with an evaluation similar to Marcus Stroman and Sonny Gray as previous undersized righties with stellar track records and plus stuff.

Andrew Benintendi went nuts at the plate again (I’ll see him and Fulmer this weekend). And, finally, Jon Harris was excellent, rebounding from a not-so-great start, so, at this point, I would make Harris the 9th pick to the Cubs and slide Trenton Clark down a few picks, but still comfortably in the top 20. I also updated the 2016 MLB Draft Rankings as a few top prospects came off the DL and impressed, further strengthening the top of that draft, which is far and away better than this year’s draft.

1. Diamondbacks – Dansby Swanson, SS, Vanderbilt
I wrote about this more in depth yesterday, where I wrote it’s down to CF Garrett Whitley, C Tyler Stephenson and CF Daz Cameron with some chance RHP Dillon Tate is still in the mix and SS Dansby Swanson possibly involved. After writing that, I heard that Arizona is definitely considering those prep players, but teams don’t think they’ll pull the trigger on a way-below-slot prep option and they are leaning college, with Tate and Swanson the targets and SS Alex Bregman also getting some consideration as a long shot.

I’ve heard Arizona wants a hitter here and GM Dave Stewart was in to see Vanderbilt last night. I had heard they were laying in the weeds on Swanson, so, for now, I’ll go with Swanson here. To be clear, Arizona hasn’t made any decisions yet, so this group could still grow or they could change course. One scouting director told me yesterday when asked what he thought Arizona would do that “it sounds like they are going to do something crazy.” Until a few hours before this published, I had Arizona taking Whitley, so this is still very much in flux. There’s also some thought that Tate or Swanson were the targets all along and the rumors of cut-rate high school options have just been a ploy to get the price down–you can pick your own theory at this point.

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Look at James Shields‘ stats this year and you might get a David Wooderson vibe. He keeps getting older and his stats stay the same. This year, the 33-year-old is even at career highs in ways that tend to become meaningful quickly. Some of it is about staying the same, sure, but there have been a few wrinkles along the way.

One thing that hasn’t changed for Shields is his dedication to the arm and shoulder exercises that he learned in Tampa that have stuck with him to this day. He admits, like Jesse Hahn, that other teams have developed similar routines by now. “I just grew up with that organization,” Shields pointed out. “I was there in 2000, so I watched it evolve into the type of arm exercise program they have there now, and they’re very thorough and they do a great job.” Shields leads the league in games started since his first full year in the league. He’s second in innings since 2007, too.

He also still throws that same old changeup. The catch phrase is that it’s the best right-handed changeup in the game, despite evidence that it’s not any more. A bigger velocity gap is good for whiffs on the change, but his keeps getting harder.

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