One of my favorite articles to write is the “you won’t believe how this guy is succeeding” piece. You’ve seen me – and plenty of other writers – break it out over and over again. Maybe it’s a reliever with a weird pitch, or a starter with a blazing fastball who is nonetheless succeeding with secondaries. Perhaps it’s a hitter excelling thanks to a novel approach, or a slugger altering his game to prioritize something he didn’t before. In any case, it’s fun to subvert expectations, and it makes for a good story to boot.

Spare some thought for the players who succeed by doing exactly what you think they’re doing, though. They might not garner as many headlines, but that doesn’t make what they’re doing any less real. I have a specific example of this today, someone I was hoping to write about in the former style. I went looking for the one weird trick that made him tick, but I couldn’t find one. Brent Rooker is succeeding with one extremely normal trick: Every time he comes to the plate, he tries to hit a home run.

Here’s a representative Rooker swing:

Here’s another:

You’ll notice a few things right away. He swings hard – his average swing speed matches Bryce Harper and Matt Olson. He also swings with a pronounced uppercut. Most hitters hit more home runs on high pitches, thanks to the laws of physics. Rooker doesn’t have a single homer in the upper third of the strike zone this year; he’s either annihilating pitches down the middle or lifting low balls over the fence. Read the rest of this entry »

Dylan Cease was one of my interview targets when the San Diego Padres visited Fenway Park last weekend, and as part of my preparation I looked back at what I’d previously written about him here at FanGraphs. What I found were three articles partially derived from conversations I had with the right-hander when he was in the Chicago White Sox organization. One, from 2020, was on how he was trying to remove unwanted cut from his fastball. A second, from 2019, was on how he’d learned and developed his curveball. The third, from 2018, included Cease’s citing “body awareness and putting your hand and arm in the right spot” as keys to his executing pitches consistently.

And then there was something from November 2017 that didn’t include quotes from the hurler himself. Rather, it featured plaudits for his performances down on the farm. In a piece titled Broadcaster’s View: Who Were the Top Players in the Midwest League, Cease was mentioned several times. Chris Vosters, who was then calling games for the Great Lakes Loons and more recently was the voice of the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks, described a high-90s fastball, a quality curveball, and an ability to mix his pitches well. Jesse Goldberg-Strassler (Lansing Lugnuts) and Dan Hasty (West Michigan Whitecaps) were others impressed by the then-promising prospect’s potential.

With that article in mind, I went off the beaten path and asked Cease about something that flies well under the radar of most fans: What is the relationship between players and broadcasters, particularly in the minor leagues? Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Seattle Mariners. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my 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 »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a genuine, no-foolin’ instance of “Strategy” (aka a mid-PA pitching change), Christian Walker’s affinity for Dodger Stadium, a Triple-A Waxahachie Swap, the Nationals optioning EW legend Joey Meneses, the Marlins DFA’ing Tim Anderson, and the latest Royce Lewis injury, plus follow-ups about bullpen-cart-driver tipping and fan catches. Then (36:10) they bring on Patreon supporter Wayne Teeger to discuss responses to recent discussions about K-Zone, ABS, and the challenge system and answer emails about ABS at lower levels, broadcasts missing pickoff attempts, green-screen issues (and other ad problems) on broadcasts, whether the path a champion takes through the playoffs matters to fans, pinch-hitting to negate a mound visit, and tracking 10K games for pitchers. Next, they Stat Blast (1:41:13) about the most major leaguers ever to play for a non-major-league team, followed by (1:48:53) a Future Blast from 2187.

Audio intro: Andy Ellison, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Justin Peters, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to “Strategy” game
Link to Banda pitch
Link to Lovullo clip
Link to Ben on “Strategy”
Link to Girardi on “Strategy”
Link to Walker article
Link to Twins Triple-A Swap
Link to Ben on the Swap
Link to MLBTR on Meneses
Link to Ben on Meneses
Link to Wood’s number tweet
Link to MLBTR on Anderson
Link to lowest wRC+ since 2023
Link to Ottavino video
Link to bullpen-cart driver EW
Link to O’s fan catch
Link to O’s fan pitch
Link to Lewis clip
Link to Lewis quote
Link to MLBTR on Lewis/Lee
Link to Twins prospect list
Link to Wayne’s LinkedIn
Link to KBO ABS article
Link to baserunning leaderboard
Link to Giamatti Rhino scene
Link to pitcher wins article
Link to Stat Blast cover
Link to 2024 Mexican League
Link to 2024 Diablos Rojos
Link to 2022 River Cats
Link to 2013-14 Tigres del Licey
Link to 2009 Bears
Link to Kenny Jackelen’s Twitter
Link to listener emails database
Link to Future Blast wiki
Link to Future Blast text
Link to Rick Wilber’s site
Link to Alan Smale’s site
Link to Episode 2074 Future Blast
Link to Episode 2093 Future Blast
Link to Updike article
Link to Williams HR video 1
Link to Williams HR video 2
Link to Gowdy call
Link to Mays catch video
Link to Future Blast sound samples
Link to ballpark meetup forms
Link to meetup organizer form

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This is a bounce-back season for Yandy Díaz, and not in a good way. After two straight seasons with a wRC+ above 145, the Rays first baseman is at 106 so far in 2024. When Jay Jaffe checked in on him on June 13, Díaz had just climbed out of a hole. Through May 10, Díaz was running a wRC+ of just 77 with a 90.9 mph average exit velocity. Since that date, he’s been at 128, and his exit velocity has jumped all the way to 93.7 mph. Even more important, he was running a 60.3% groundball rate on May 10, but has run a 53.3% groundball rate after that point. For the season, that still leaves him at 56.4%, highest among all qualified players, but for Díaz, that handful of percentage points has always been the difference between being a good hitter and being one of the best in baseball. When his groundball rate is up, his wRC+ is down, and vice versa. The relationship is plain to see:

MLB’s new bat tracking data put the issue in stark relief. Blasts are a combination of two metrics: fast swings and squared up swings. The official definitions are here, but if you swing hard and you barrel the ball up, you’ll end up with a blast. That’s a good thing, because so far this season, blasts have a wOBA of .731, and a barrel rate of 27.7%. For Díaz, however, those numbers are .423 and 16.0%. He’s tied with Gunnar Henderson for fourth in baseball with 100 blasts, but just five of those blasts have turned into home runs. Of the 260 players who have hit at least 25 blasts this season, that 5.0% home run rate puts him in 248th place. Why? You know why. He has a launch angle of 1 on his blasts, tied for 259th out of 260. On the left, with the infield dirt almost completely obscured by dots, is Díaz’s spray chart on blasts. On the right, with home runs sprinkled liberally on top, is Henderson’s. Read the rest of this entry »

Last summer, I wrote about how Aaron Civale “King Ralph-ed” his way into an exciting postseason race. The Rays entered the 2023 season with five playoff-caliber starting pitchers at the top of their depth chart and a star pitching prospect waiting in the wings. Yet after several major elbow injuries, they were forced to send a Top 100 prospect to Cleveland in exchange for Civale at the deadline. By August, the right-hander was Tampa Bay’s no. 3 starter. The beneficiary of so many others’ misfortunes, Civale went from a scuffling Guardians club to one of the best teams in the league.

Conversely, Civale probably would have preferred to be back in Cleveland this season. As of today, it’s the Guardians, not the Rays, who are competing with the Orioles for the best record in the American League. Meanwhile, it’s the Rays, not the Guardians, who are struggling to stay above .500 with the trade deadline fast approaching. Thus, I have no choice but to go back to the King Ralph parallel. At the end of the movie, Ralph decides he’d rather return to his old life and abdicates the throne. However, when Ralph abdicates, his aging and childless successor, Sir Cedric, warns him that he might have to be king again once Cedric dies, leaving open the possibility for a sequel. King Ralph never got a second chapter, but as luck would have it, Civale just King Ralph-ed all over again. The rules of the CBA prevent him from simply packing up and heading back to Cleveland, but he’s just taken his place in a new Midwestern court. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2020s have been a quiet time for the Boston Red Sox. Since winning the 2018 World Series, their fourth in a 15-year period, Boston hasn’t looked much like one of the titans, ready to throw down with the Yankees or Astros in brutal warfare for baseball supremacy. Instead, as an organization, the Red Sox have taken on the character of a genial, pastorale retiree, gently reclining on the porch of an American Craftsman house, as if they were in a 1980s lemonade commercial.

On Independence Day in 2022, Boston was second in the AL East with the junior circuit’s third-best record, but in the space of a month, it had lost Nathan Eovaldi, Garrett Whitlock, Michael Wacha, and Rich Hill to injuries. It was the prime time to make trades, but the Red Sox did basically nothing that would have helped them maintain their playoff relevance; their pitching staff’s 6.30 ERA for July dropped them below .500 by the time the Sox made their pointless acquisition of Eric Hosmer at the trade deadline. At last year’s deadline, when they were just 3.5 games out of the final wild card spot, they decided the day was intolerably hot and they were content to sip the last of their sweet tea as they watched and waited for the fireflies to come out at the dying of the day. Once again, Boston is in contention during trade season, a half-game up on the Royals for the last AL playoff spot, and it’s time for them to get up off the porch. Read the rest of this entry »

Spencer Horwitz is hoping to show that what he did in the minors can be replicated in the majors, and so far, he’s off to a strong start. Displaying what my colleagues Eric Longenhagen and Tess Taruskin called “a patient, contact-driven approach at the plate,” the lefty-hitting Blue Jays utilityman has slashed .310/.430/.479 with an equal amount of walks and strikeouts over 86 plate appearances since being called up from Triple-A in early June. By comparison, his numbers down on the farm include a .307/.413/.471 slash line and roughly the same number of strikeouts and free passes over parts of five professional seasons. The extent to which Horwitz can continue having this level of success against major league pitching remains to be seen — last season’s 15-game cup of coffee yielded lesser results — but his skillset and upside are promising.

In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, the 26-year-old Horwitz discussed how he’s learned and evolved as a hitter over the years, from watching Manny Machado flicking the barrel to challenging himself with high velocity off of machines.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite ice-breaker questions in this series: Do you view hitting as more of an art or as more of a science?

Spencer Horwitz: “Oh, good question. I would say a blend of both. I’ve been blessed in a lot of ways with some hitter-ish things that I can’t explain, but I’ve also learned a lot through the science of hitting.”

Laurila: When did that learning start?

Horwitz: “I think it started when I was in high school, not really knowing what I was looking at, but watching really good hitters and trying to emulate them. Later, I was able to put some true numbers to the data that I was collecting in my mind.” 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.

With less than four weeks to go until the July 30 trade deadline, now’s a great time to start taking a lay of the land and determining which teams will be buying, which will be selling, and which are caught in the middle. I looked at the AL teams on Tuesday, so today, let’s cover the NL clubs. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. 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 »