Surely this is just some piece of cosmic performance art. If you’re looking for proof that we live in a simulation, Isaac Paredes’ spray chart is strong evidence. Sure, you’ve heard of pull hitters. What about only-right-at-the-foul-pole hitters, though?
Paredes is doing the same thing he always seems to. Through 259 plate appearances this season, he has the best wRC+ of his career at 147. Think it’s all about his one simple trick for hitting homers? He’s 16th in baseball in on-base percentage. He’s still walking roughly 10% of the time and striking out far less frequently than average. None of it makes sense, and yet it keeps happening.
The “Paredes approach” has been endlessly rehashed at this point. He puts the ball in the air. He pulls the ball in the air. He makes a tremendous amount of contact, and he cuts down on his swing to do so. His bat speed and exit velocity numbers are unimpressive, and he hits a ton of fly balls that would be outs if they went anywhere other than the left field corner. But, well, they keep going to the left field corner, as we’ve already covered.
Let’s put it this way: Here’s a list of pull rate on fly balls for all hitters, from Paredes’ debut in 2020 through the end of last season:
J.T. Realmuto can no longer outrun the brutality of his chosen profession. The Phillies catcher, having battled knee discomfort all spring, is having right knee surgery. While Realmuto has dealt with knee pain for weeks, this is nevertheless startling news. Realmuto’s durability is the thing that makes him special; in 11 major league seasons, this is only his fourth stint on the IL (including a COVID quarantine period in 2021), and none of his previous trips have lasted longer than 22 days.
Moreover, Phillies Doomerism, as a mental health condition, is frequently comorbid with Sixers Doomerism. People who suffer from the latter probably heard the word “meniscus” flashed back to Joel Embiid collapsing in a heap and taking the Sixers’ season with him.
It’s not quite that bad. Realmuto is headed for the longest injury absence of his career, but absent some bizarre complication, he’ll be back well before the end of the regular season. Even if that weren’t the case, no baseball player is as important to his team as Embiid is to his. Nevertheless, the Phillies were built under the assumption that Realmuto would always be available. So even a brief absence is going to be problematic. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Bryce Harper pandering to Londoners, Kiké Hernández booting a ball during an in-game interview, banning player scouting cards to lower BABIP, the effect on home runs of widening the foul lines, Yusei Kikuchi, Tyler Soderstrom, and a foul-territory hypothetical, crediting managers for sacrificial ejections, Aaron Judge’s scalding hot streak, Luis Gil performing like Gerrit Cole, the Yankees’ candlelit clubhouse, Matt Waldron as the small-sample best pitcher in baseball, the dynamic duo of Tarik Skubal and Cole Ragans, follow-ups about non-hated dynasties, the Angels’ resilient attendance, a mid-PA pitching change, and pterodactyls and dinosaurs, plus closing banter about Buster Olney’s hacked-Twitter Luis Robert Jr. trade rumors.
We’re back at it again with another batch of baseball lingo. As usual, I encourage you to go check out previous installments of this series to catch up on what you missed or familiarize yourself with the premise of these primers. You can find each of them by clicking on each individual part for its corresponding article:
At the end of my last piece, I hinted at moving beyond four-seamers, and digging into the types of pitches that typically make up the rest of a pitcher’s arsenal. But as soon as I sat down to start cataloging the ways that secondary pitch shapes are described, the vastness of the array of breaking balls and offspeed offerings throughout professional baseball quickly became overwhelming. That is largely due to how pitching practices and preferences vary from player to player, and how those individual approaches impact how each respective arsenal is most effectively used.
Asking a major league pitcher how to throw a slider would be like asking a world-renowned chef how to make scrambled eggs. They probably wouldn’t actually answer the question of how to make scrambled eggs, but rather, they’d tell you how they make their scrambled eggs. And those preparation processes would vary drastically. Some would be of the Anthony Bourdain ilk, with an inclination toward old-school simplicity. Beat eggs in a bowl with nothing but salt and pepper. Throw some butter in a hot pan and add the eggs, then move them around with a wooden spoon for a while. Meanwhile, others would take more of a Gordon Ramsay angle, insistent that a cold pot, a 60-second timer, and a dab of f—ing crème fraiche are all necessary for perfect scrambled eggs. The only shared components between these two preparations are the eggs, the heat, and the fact that they are kept in motion while cooking. And yet, both outputs, while different in innumerable ways, are classified simply as “scrambled eggs.”
Similarly, pitchers’ grips and releases of their secondary offerings also vary greatly from pitcher to pitcher. Depending on what a pitcher is naturally adept at, what he prefers, or even the length of his fingers or his overall grip strength can dictate how a he throws a given breaking ball or offspeed pitch. As a result, despite being classified as the same type, the shape of a pitch from one hurler to the next can look so different as to hardly seem comparable. So, before we dig into describing the shapes of specific pitches, and the way those shapes are created by a given pitcher, let’s boil down these classifications to their essential elements – the eggs, heat, and perpetual movement, as it were.
Secondary pitches, while individually unique, can also be broken down into basic elements. Namely, we can boil them down to the type of spin a pitcher applies to the ball, the angle of the spin axis he creates in doing so, and the degree of supination or pronation in his release that accomplishes these distinct spin attributes. Of course, there’s much more to pitch design than these elements, but understanding them is a great place to start.
So, let’s jump in!
Spin Axis
The spin axis is the central point that the ball is spinning around. In other words (apparently, I’m on a food metaphor kick right now), if the ball were a candy apple, and you wanted to use it to illustrate the spin of a certain pitch, the spin axis would be where you would hold the stick. It’s very rare for a ball to have perfect forms of any type of spin, with spin axes at perfect parallels or perpendiculars. Instead, variation comes from the pitcher’s arm slot, release point, supination/pronation (which I’ll discuss in a moment), and many other personalized characteristics. Those variations, among other factors, influence the degree to which a pitch’s shape digresses from pure north/south or east/west movement.
On a ball with pure backspin, the spin axis would be in the exact center of either side of the ball, horizontal to the ground. As mentioned in Pitching, Part 2: Backspin is created by the pitcher letting the ball roll off his fingertips.
Kopech keeps his fingers behind the ball upon release, and the seams move upward across the front of the ball as it travels toward the plate.
Gyroscopic spin is the term used to describe clockwise or counterclockwise spin. On a ball with pure gyroscopic spin, the spin axis would be in the exact center of the front and back of the ball, horizontal to the ground.
To create this bullet-like spin, Vodnik moves his fingers along the side of the ball as he releases it.
Topspin, also referred to as “forward spin” or sometimes “tumble,” is the inverse of backspin. On a ball with pure topspin, the spin axis would also be in the exact center of either side of the ball, horizontal to the ground, but spinning in the opposite direction.
As the ball travels toward the plate, the seams move downward across the front of it. This requires Cusick to move his fingers around the side of the ball even more than what is required for gyroscopic spin, to the point where his fingers are moving downward across the front of the ball as he releases it.
Supination vs. Pronation
Supination and pronation refer to the direction and degree to which a pitcher rotates his wrist and forearm. Applying supination or pronation to a pitch will most often sacrifice some amount of velocity in favor of some amount of movement. The exact type of movement, and the effect on velocity, depends on how the supinated or pronated release is being utilized – i.e. what type of spin it’s creating on the ball, and on what spin axis.
Supination is when a pitcher rotates his forearm such that his knuckles move toward the outside of the ball, and his palm moves toward an upward position. This creates glove-side cut on a pitch.
Pitches that feature supination include cutters, sliders, and curveballs, to name a few.
Pronation is the inverse of supination. When a pitcher pronates his arm, his wrist and forearm rotate in the other direction, finishing with his palm facing away from his body or toward the ground. This creates arm-side run on a pitch.
A non-comprehensive list of pronated pitches includes two-seamers, circle changeups, and screwballs.
Again, we’re only talking about the fundamentals here, when it comes to understanding pitch design. The fun part occurs when these elements are mixed and matched to create different types of pitches. Now that we’ve defined and illustrated our terms, we can move on to how these terms combine and commingle to make up a pitcher’s full arsenal, as well as which pitches are most and least open to interpretation. If sliders are scrambled eggs, for example, then knuckleballs are poached eggs; there’s only very slight variation in how pitchers throw them, and the output should be virtually the same from pitcher to pitcher, with mistakes being easy to spot. I look forward to digging into these comparisons and more in installments to come!
I continue to find Statcast’s bat tracking data fascinating. I also continue to find it overwhelming. Hitting is so complex that I can’t quite imagine boiling it down to just a few numbers. Even when I look at some of the more complex presentations of bat tracking, like squared-up rate, I sometimes can’t quite understand what it means.
I’ll give you an example: when I looked into Manny Machado’s early-season struggles last week, I found that he was squaring the ball up more frequently when he hit grounders than when he put the ball in the air. That sounds bad to me – hard grounders don’t really pay the bills. But I didn’t have much to compare it to, aside from league averages for those rates. And I didn’t have context for what shapes of squared-up rate work for various different successful batters.
What’s an analyst to do? If you’re like me in 2024, there’s one preferred option: ask my friendly neighborhood large language model to help me create a visual. I had an idea of what I wanted to do. Essentially, I wanted to create a chart that showed how a given hitter’s squared-up rate varied by launch angle. There’s a difference between squaring the ball up like Luis Arraez – line drives into the gap all day – and doing it like Machado. I hoped that a visual representation would make that a little clearer. Read the rest of this entry »
Colt Keith is searching for his comfort zone at baseball’s highest level. Currently day-to-day with a sore knee – which occurred during a collision over the weekend — the Detroit Tigers rookie infielder is slashing just .215/.269/.280. Moreover, belying his sturdy 6-foot-2, 245-pound frame and ability to propel pitches far distances, the 22-year-old has gone yard only twice in 201 plate appearances.
The potential for much more is unquestionably there. In January, Eric Longenhagen assigned Keith a 50 FV despite questions about his defense, pointing to the promising youngster’s “offensive prowess… rooted in his raw power.” Barely a week after those words were written, the Tigers signed Keith to a six-year contract worth $28.6 million — this despite his having yet to debut in the majors.
He was even farther away from The Show when I first talked to him late in the 2021 season. The 2020 fifth-round draft pick out of Mississippi’s Biloxi High School had recently been promoted to West Michigan, and whereas he’d been scorching the ball with Low-A Lakeland, he was at the time struggling to hold his head above water with the High-A Whitecaps. That he was scuffling came as little surprise to the self-aware slugger.
“For whatever reason, everything about my swing, and everything I know about baseball, seems to go out the window when I move up,” Keith told me at the time. “Then I have to restart and get used to the better pitching and to the speed of the game. Once I do that, I’m back in the groove.” Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve written about the Colorado Rockies so many times over the past two years that I think we can all take the normal disclaimer as read. They’re not very good, and they’re probably not going to be very good in the short or medium term.
However, there is some good news. Colorado has put quite a bit of faith in two young players who put up monster defensive numbers at up-the-middle positions: center fielder Brenton Doyle and shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. The latter signed a seven-year contract extension this spring. These guys are so good defensively it almost doesn’t matter if they hit at all. And that’s a fortunate coincidence, because last year, they didn’t hit at all.
That part wasn’t the good news. This is the good news: In 2024, Doyle and Tovar are hitting a little. Read the rest of this entry »
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Houston Astros. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fourth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love.
Things have taken a rough turn for the Chicago Cubs since the end of April. Over the weekend, they lost three of their four games against the Reds, lowering their record to 32-34 ahead of their upcoming a three-game set against the Rays in Tampa Bay.
The Cubs started strong, with a 17-9 record that ranked third in the National League, but their 17-0 loss to the Red Sox on April 27 kicked off a nightmarish 15-25 run. Since then, only the putrid White Sox have fewer wins than their crosstown rivals during that 40-game stretch. So what’s gone wrong? And what can the Cubs do to fix it? We’ll get to that second, more complicated question a bit later, but before we do, let’s answer that first one because it’s pretty simple. What’s gone wrong? Pretty much everything.
Since April 27, the Cubs rank 25th in the majors with an 87 wRC+, down from the sixth-ranked 112 wRC+ they posted across their first 26 games. Meanwhile, over their last 40 games, their pitching staff has a 4.14 ERA, which ranks 19th. Their bullpen has been especially bad, with a 4.90 ERA that is the fourth-worst mark in the majors during that span. Even fielding the ball has been a struggle; despite having reigning Gold Glovers Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner at the middle infield positions, Chicago has been among the seven worst defensive clubs in the majors, with -20 DRS and -10 OAA.
Jed Hoyer’s tenure as president of baseball operations has been defined by building depth and accruing volume rather than star power. Despite running one of the four franchises valued at $4 billion or more, Hoyer hasn’t signed a player to a contract larger than Swanson’s $177 million, and as things stand, he has not doled out a deal worth $30 million for a single season. (If Cody Bellinger opts out after the season, the Cubs will pay him a total of $30 million, but that technically wouldn’t be $30 million for one year; rather, Bellinger would earn $25 million in 2024, with a $5 million buyout allocated to 2025.)
Obviously, there aren’t any marquee free agents to sign right now, and it remains to be seen if the Cubs will be in the market for the best available players this coming offseason. (As of now, Juan Soto and Corbin Burnes look like the only two who’ll command average annual values of $30 million or more.) But letting perfect contract terms be the enemy of good teams has arguably been what’s prevented the Cubs from making the postseason in every non-COVID year since 2019. The team was at least loosely connected to Bryce Harper, Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Carlos Correa in their free agent years, all of whom besides Bogaerts would be the Cubs’ best player right now. Of course, there are more factors to signing a free agent besides offering the most money — Turner preferred being out east, for example — but the Cubs’ inability, or perhaps lack of desire, to even get close to finalizing deals with elite free agents may well be directly contributing to what has been a middling team for the past handful of seasons.
This is not to say that all the Cubs’ recent signings haven’t worked out. The Swanson deal looked great last year when he hit 22 home runs, posted a 104 wRC+, and was worth 4.4 WAR; we shouldn’t lose sight of that just because he’s struggled this year. Similarly, Chicago’s decision to sign Shota Imanaga was brilliant. Although he didn’t come to the U.S. with the same hype as Yamamoto, and therefore came cheaper, Imanaga has been arguably the best pitcher from last offseason’s free agent class.
But along with those two astute signings, there are plenty of others for “middle-class” free agents that haven’t worked out, among them are the deals for pitchers Jameson Taillon, Drew Smyly, Michael Fulmer, Brad Boxberger, first baseman/DH Trey Mancini, and catcher Tucker Barnhart. Settling for these value deals for mid-tier players has led to Chicago’s middling performances. The Cubs can afford to spend more than they have under Hoyer, and part of the reason why they are floundering now is because they don’t have enough high-end talent to contend with the best teams. To get star-level players, you need to pay star-level prices. Maybe those prices are excessive and don’t make sense according to dollars-per-WAR calculations, but they’re often necessary to assemble a winning roster, especially for the clubs that have the financial flexibility overpay for players. As Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman once said, being rational doesn’t consummate many deals. That sentiment can also be applied to trades — the Cubs haven’t swung a significant one on the buying side since acquiring Jose Quintana during the 2017 season.
Andrew Friedman: "If you're always rational about every free agent, you will finish third on every free agent."
That hesitation to swing major trades has had a positive effect, though, in that it’s given the Cubs an incredibly deep farm system. In their piece on the Cubs’ top prospects, Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin described the organization’s minor league system as “one of the very best” in MLB, noting that the franchise has more top 100 prospects (9) than any other team.
But, having a great farm system doesn’t mean much if you’re not going to use your prospects either to beef up your big league club or trade them for impactful players on other teams.
The Cubs have already tried the former, to mixed results. Three of their nine top 100 prospects are already on the major league roster: first baseman Michael Busch, who has a solid 123 wRC+ at first base; Pete Crow-Armstrong, who has struggled at the plate (60 wRC+) but is already one of the league’s finest center fielders (4 OAA, 6 DRS); and Jordan Wicks, whose peripherals (4.01 xERA and 3.23 FIP) indicate that he’s been better than his 4.44 ERA in five starts and a relief appearance would suggest. The problem is that none of them, at least right now, are enough to help the Cubs break through.
So where do the Cubs go from here? Well, they probably can’t look within the organization to stop the bleeding. Outfielder Owen Caissie, their sixth-ranked prospect and no. 69 overall, is tearing it up in Triple-A right now (130 wRC+ in 238 plate appearances), but he’s the only one of their six top 100 prospects still in the minors who is close to being ready for the big leagues. Instead, the best way to fix things for this season would probably involve trading away at least one of their top four prospects: Crow-Armstrong, right-hander Cade Horton (currently out with a lat strain), infielder Matt Shaw, and outfielder Kevin Alcántara.
If the Cubs don’t think they can sign Soto or Burnes, trading for established stars is really their only path to acquiring a player who could drastically improve the floor and ceiling of a roster that’s more quantity than quality, with Bellinger, Christopher Morel, and Seiya Suzuki showing flashes of stardom but not on a consistent basis. The Cubs haven’t had consistent All-Star performers on offense since the days of Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo; on the pitching side, they haven’t had a single ace-level starter since Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks in their peaks — though Imanaga certainly appears on his way. They haven’t had a closer last an entire season in the role since Wade Davis in 2017.
Ultimately, if the goal is to win — and with Craig Counsell at the helm for $8 million a year, it certainly ought to be — then acquiring a true anchor for the roster is paramount. But if the team appears too flawed for a single star player like Luis Robert Jr., or Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to make a difference, then the best course of action might be to further augment the farm system by selling before this year’s trade deadline, even if they only trade rental relievers like Smyly and Héctor Neris. They could then finally make this coming offseason the one where they get aggressive rather than shrewd, going to the market instead of waiting for it to come to them. If they went all in and signed Soto, he’d be the best hitter they’ve had in decades. And despite some of the questions about the long-term viability of Pete Alonso, he’d certainly be the team’s biggest power threat since Sammy Sosa. With either or both of those stars on the roster, the Cubs would be able to let the top players in their farm system develop while contributing in supporting roles instead of having to fulfill their potential right away.
Whether it comes now, at the deadline, or in the offseason, the Cubs need to do something different. Going back to the well with good-not-great players is how you get good-not-great teams.
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