FanGraphs Baseball

It takes a lot of muscle to square up a big fastball. In the case of George Springer, it might also take some relaxation.

Heading into the series that had the Astros in town, I asked hitting consultant and FanGraphs author Dan Farnsworth about a few of the Astros hitters as part of my research process. About Springer, Farnsworth said “I like his swing a lot, perhaps except for the excessive effort he has sometimes.” I didn’t get to talk to Springer, but I did talk to his hitting coach Dave Hudgens, and that word came up again.

Apparently, though, excessive effort is not a problem in batting practice. Take a look at the swings he took that day in batting practice, and they do look free and easy.

In game, it’s tough to get the same side view. But here in this package of highlights about Springer’s five-RBI night against the Padres, you might see some more effort.

And then there’s the problem that most videos are highlight videos, when the player is acting optimally. But here’s a side-view of a Springer at-bat in minor league camp, and in a swing before the home run, you can see what might be called effort issues. (And another, here, from the majors, with some slow mo.)

Of course, we’re talking bout batting practice, which is a two-fold problem.

For one, hitters are often working on parts of their swing that aren’t their best features. Farnsworth pointed out that Ian Kinsler’s batting practices are full of squibbers to first base, and then come game time, Kinsler is hitting frozen ropes to left field, his pull field. Despite the fact that scouts take a lot of knowledge away from batting practice, you wouldn’t want to assume Kinsler was a light-hitting opposite-field guy after watching him in BP.

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It’s not just a spring-training blip anymore. For one or two games, you can dismiss a pitcher working with reduced velocity. Sometimes mechanics can be slightly off. Sometimes a pitcher can just be under the weather. Jered Weaver’s gone beyond that. His velocity was way down in spring training, and it’s carried over into each of his regular-season starts. Weaver is down a full three ticks, and that’s a dramatic decline between years. Unsurprisingly, he’s been bad — he’s struck out just one of every 10 hitters. One season ago, his rate was twice as high.

Between years, for starting pitchers, the biggest fastball velocity drop belongs to Derek Holland, and he’s on the disabled list. The second-biggest drop belongs to Henderson Alvarez, and he’s on the disabled list. The fourth-biggest drop belongs to Homer Bailey, and he’s on the disabled list. Weaver owns the third-biggest drop, and he says he feels fine. Which means there’s either something wrong that doesn’t hurt, or this is just what he is. This isn’t what he wants to be.

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Episode 558
Kiley McDaniel is both (a) the lead prospect analyst for FanGraphs and also (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio — during which edition he discusses some Atlanta-area prep prospects and some Nashville-area prep prospects and the near futures both of Mike Foltynewicz and Carlos Frias.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 50 min play time.)

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At its best, baseball is an outdoor, summer sport. In order to fit 162 games and the playoffs into the calendar, Major League Baseball is forced to start in late March or early April and end in late October or early November when the weather is less likely to cooperate. Attendance is up roughly 500 fans per game in the early part of the season, and the fans have turned out in Kansas City and San Diego after a playoff run and an acquisition-rich offseason, respectively. MLB has publicized shorter games, although it is not clear what kind of effect that would have on attendance. All teams, especially those in the northern half of the country have been able to take advantage of good weather, and MLB should do its best to get fewer games played when the weather is not best for baseball.

Here is a graph showing average per game attendance through Sunday’s games, per Baseball-Reference.

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If there was one overarching theme of this last offseason, it was the surprise push towards contention from a lot of teams that didn’t quite look quite ready to win. The Padres were the most aggressive unexpected buyer, eschewing rebuilding to instead load up for a run in 2015, but they weren’t the only team to decide to capitalize on the current unprecedented level of parity in the sport. Over in the AL, the White Sox made a similar series of moves, bringing in Jeff Samardzija, Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche, David Robertson, and Zach Duke in their offseason makeover. With Chris Sale and Jose Abreu at the top of their games, Rick Hahn decided to push in on 2015 and see if they could follow in the Royals footsteps.

The pre-season forecasts, though, never really bought into it. On Opening Day, our Playoff Odds page had the White Sox going 78-84, with just an 8% chance of winning the AL Central and a 6% chance of winning one of the two Wild Card spots; the Rangers and Twins were the only AL teams with a lower chance of reaching the postseason. There was a scenario where things broke right and the White Sox became legitimate contenders — the Astros are currently in the midst of that scenario at the moment — but it was going to require the team’s role players step up and fill some of the areas where the team was expected to get replacement level production.

That hasn’t happened.

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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 St. Louis | 20:10 ET
Wood (23.2 IP, 85 xFIP-) vs. Martinez (26.0 IP, 89 xFIP-)
Very hard-throwing right-hander Carlos Martinez has produced almost exactly the same strikeout and walk and ground-ball rates so far this year as he did last year. The difference: he recorded the majority of his innings in a relief capacity last season; this season, in a starting one. To the degree that pitching as a starter is more challenging than as a reliever, this is what one might call a “positive development.” Simultaneous to that, however, there are two less positive developments — namely, a decline both in Martinez’s swinging-strike rate (by about four points so far) and also his average fastball velocity (by about 2 mph currently). What this game represents is another trial in the experiment called Carlos Martinez, Baseball Pitcher — which experiment one can find commendably narrated by Cubs broadcasters Jim Deshaies and Len Kasper.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Chicago NL Television.

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Back in February, there was some discussion about the transition from Triple-A to the majors, and whether that jump was getting any more difficult. It certainly seemed that way. Several highly-regarded minor leaguers completely flopped in their first tastes of big league action last year. Gregory Polanco, Jon Singleton, Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr. and the late Oscar Taveras all didn’t hit a lick after tearing it up in the minors. And perhaps worst of all, Javier Baez — a consensus top 10 prospect heading into the year — hit a putrid .169/.227/.324 with an unsightly 41% strikeout rate.

Jeff Sullivan and Ben Lindbergh both looked into the validity of this phenomenon, and wrote response articles more or less debunking it. Both concluded that the gap between Triple-A and the majors wasn’t growing after all, or at least not in any meaningful way. So much for that.

However, after thinking about it for a while, I started to wonder if there might be other ways to explain the initial failures of guys like Baez. Perhaps it might be more informative to look at these transitions from a different angle: Not across time, but across skill sets.

Baez’s flaws were easily identifiable. He struggled to make contact, and also showed a tendency to chase pitches out of the zone. But perhaps his rough transition wasn’t unique to him. Maybe his skill set — his poor plate discipline and/or poor bat-to-ball ability — just doesn’t play well against major league pitching. If that’s the case, it might help us be wary of the next Javier Baez. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben and Sam banter about the weekend in baseball and draft starting pitchers under age 25.

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
Arizona at Los Angeles NL | 16:05 ET
C. Anderson (23.1 IP, 93 xFIP-) vs. B. Anderson (19.2 IP, 100 xFIP-)
It would appear to be almost a certainty that a major-league pitcher named Anderson will record a win in this game; however, it really does only appear that way. What that claim ignores are those occasions on which a starter isn’t responsible for the decision. Indeed, one finds that, in 2014, pitchers were only assessed decisions on 3425 of the 4860 games they started. Using that precedent, one might more reasonably suggest that there’s approximately a 70% chance that a pitcher named Anderson will record a win today. This, of course, ignores any specific variables regarding the actual pitchers or teams participating. But those considerations — like most other considerations — are outside the purview of this brief post.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Los Angeles NL.

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