Monday night, my wife posed a baseball question I couldn’t immediately answer. As the Angels and Giants went to the eighth inning with the Halos up by a run, she had a simple question: How often does a team that’s losing after seven innings come back and win? I guess I could have gone to our wonderful WPA Inquirer, a fun little tool for hypotheticals. That tells me that the Giants had around a 25% chance to win heading into the eighth. But I took her question as a broader one, concerned not just with that specific game, but with all games. How likely is a comeback?
I didn’t know the answer offhand, and I couldn’t find it on Google either (secret professional writer tip: use Google). So I did what anyone in my situation would do: I said “I don’t know, but now I’m going to write an article about this.” Two days later, here we are.
I’m hardly the first person to do research on comebacks. Russell Carleton has been looking into comebacks for a while. Rob Mains has too. Chet Gutwein investigated comeback wins and blown saves here at FanGraphs in 2021. Everyone loves to write about comebacks. Baseball Reference even keeps a list of the biggest comeback wins. They’re memorable games, and fertile ground for investigation. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Tim Anderson–José Ramírez fight and White Sox clubhouse culture, John Angelos benching Orioles broadcaster Kevin Brown, the Angels’ post-deadline slump (and the Mariners’ rise), the return of Gary Sánchez‘s power bat, updates on the MLB injury rate, the pitch clock, and the zombie runner, Charlie Culberson’s re-reunion with Atlanta, the Rays’ latest unlikely starting pitcher, the Yankees’ ambidextrous catching prospect (and the dream of a left-handed catcher), and more, plus (1:21:55) a Future Blast from 2043.
A quick hitter here: today, MLB released the schedule for the 2023 playoffs. It’s not exactly compelling reading; for the most part, teams play a series of games against each other, mostly every day except for travel, just like you expect. But the new 12-team playoff format is still fresh, so let’s run down the relevant structure of the rounds just as a reminder.
Wild Card Round
This one is the same as before and will likely remain this way for as long as this playoff format exists. The worst division winner and the three wild card teams in each league play (up to) three straight games, at the better seed’s stadium, on three straight days, October 3–5. That means that a lot of teams will be burning their best three starters in this round, but there’s nothing new here, so let’s move on.
Divisional Series
Last year, the two leagues had different schedules, despite the same wild card schedule, to avoid days with no baseball whatsoever. That same general structure is preserved this year. The AL starts with two games on October 7 and 8, then a travel day, then games on the 10th and 11th, another travel day, and a potential Game 5 on the 13th. The NL is staggered differently: they start with a game on the 7th followed by a day off, then have a game on the 9th followed by a travel day, two straight games on the 11th and 12th, and finally a travel day before a potential Game 5.
This is a change from last year, as both leagues have more off-days baked into the schedule. In 2022, teams more or less had to use five starters if they went the distance in the wild card round. The 2022 NL schedule had only one off-day total across the round, and while the AL schedule had two off-days, it closed with three games in three days across two cities. With more time thanks to the lack of a lockout-impacted schedule, the rest days have multiplied. An NL team could use its three best starters in the wild card round, a fourth starter in Game 1, and then its three best starters again in Games 2–4. Amazingly, its ace could come back for Game 5 on regular rest; he’d be pitching on October 3, 9, and 14, hardly a strenuous schedule.
That won’t work quite as well in the AL, but it won’t be much worse. An ace could pitch on October 3, 8, and 13, with four days of rest between each start. Relative to last year, this year places less premium on depth and more on top-end starting pitching. Fifth starters, I’m sorry: your services likely won’t be required.
Championship Series
The ALCS schedule is almost exactly what baseball fans are used to: two games, a travel day, three games, another travel day, and then the last two games. The NL schedule is the same, other than the fact that it starts a day later. That double-travel-day setup means teams will never play more than three games in a row, which means a four-man rotation and shortened bullpen should work just fine. This was not the case last year, when both league schedules provided for five straight games with no travel day, again because of the compressed timeline. The takeaway here is the same: rotation depth is less important than it was in the 2022 postseason.
World Series
No change to the standard World Series format, which mirrors this year’s championship series format: two games, a travel day, three games, another travel day, and then the last two games. It’s the same schedule we’re all used to, with all the same implications for rest.
The broad takeaway: the schedule is returning to the rhythm of the playoffs from before last year (weirdo 2020 season excluded, naturally). Players will be more rested, which I’m sure they’re in favor of. Games are still staggered to minimize days without baseball. That’s about it; may the best team win.
After trading away veteran pieces and restocking the farm system at the deadline, the Mets have pivoted and are now focusing on the future. That being the case, it both was and wasn’t a curious time for the team to option Brett Baty, seemingly their third baseman of the future, to Triple-A Syracuse on Monday. Now is the time to let the kids play and figure things out at the big-league level, but Baty has been struggling so mightily that he might need a change of scenery. He’s running a 77 wRC+ on the season, and since the start of July, he’s at a measly 39. He hasn’t recorded a hit since July 23, a stretch of 25 plate appearances. That’s the second-longest active streak in baseball, behind the also recently demoted Corey Julks with 42. Combine that with poor defense, and Baty certainly sounds like someone who could use a little time away from the spotlight to figure things out.
The Mets have said the same. “We think this is what’s best for Brett, which is what’s best for the Mets, for the time being,” Buck Showalter told reporters. “Just because something’s delayed doesn’t mean it’s denied.” He added, “I’d be surprised if he doesn’t take a little time – two or three days – and then all of a sudden kind of get back to who he is and who he’s capable of being.”
What complicates the issue is Baty’s service time. It’s a tricky situation because, to borrow a phrase, the timing is nothing short of predominant. Between this year and last, Baty has accrued 162 days of major league service time, just short of the 172 that constitute a full year. When the Mets started the season with him at Triple-A Syracuse, it seemed like they might be deliberately gaming the system. He was 23rd overall in our prospect rankings and, along with Mark Vientos, had torn up the Grapefruit League. The Mets did call Baty up in mid-April, early enough that he’d have a chance to accrue a full year of service time, but once he arrived in Flushing, they still seemed to be on the fence about him, even though he had raked in Syracuse and continued raking for his first month in the big leagues. He was kept in a loose platoon with Eduardo Escobar, starting against righties and sitting about half the time against lefties — not necessarily how you handle your third baseman of the future. Read the rest of this entry »
Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to the first post-trade deadline edition of my Tuesday chats. I just published a piece on the Padres’ loss of Joe Musgrove and their missed opportunities during their series with the Dodgers https://blogs.fangraphs.com/padres-lose-musgrove-and-let-slip-a-golden…
Phil: Can you explain this Orioles broadcaster controversy? Don’t they have a PR person to tell them they’re going to be hammered over this? And an HR person to observe that Brown was just literally doing his job? They used to be bad and now they’re good–it’s not like that’s some sort of company secret. I’m not just grumbling (though I am)–I really don’t understand what they expected to happen.
2:05
Jay Jaffe: The Orioles have an idiot man-baby for an owner. Brown was reading a stat from the notes that the team prepared for that day’s broadcast – they didn’t need vetting from a PR person because no sane person would have thought such a tidbit about the team’s improvement would have inflamed even the most idiotic man-baby.
For a team with a losing record, the Padres were aggressive in advance of the August 1 trade deadline, swinging three trades in order to patch holes on the major league roster without fretting about the impact of further increasing their payroll. Yet their first week since upgrading their roster hasn’t gone well. Not only did they lose Joe Musgrove to the injured list on Friday, but they also followed that by losing three of four to the Dodgers this weekend at Petco Park, missing a golden opportunity to get to .500 for the first time in nearly two months and gain ground on the NL West leaders.
The 30-year-old Musgrove was scratched from his start last Wednesday in Colorado due to what was initially termed “minor” shoulder soreness. The thinking at the time was that he would just miss one turn and be able to start against the Mariners in a two-game series starting on Tuesday. But when Musgrove flew home to San Diego to be examined, an MRI revealed that he had inflammation in his right shoulder capsule. Surgery is not yet a consideration, but he’ll be shut down from throwing for at least three weeks, meaning that at best he’ll return sometime in September. The Padres won’t have much clarity until he is examined after his rest period, and then he’ll need at least a couple of weeks to rebuild his pitch count.
The injury caught Musgrove by surprise. “I honestly thought we were going in for a pretty routine checkup… but they went in and found some injury to the capsule,” he told reporters. “Every part of me wants to go out there and throw. But everything’s telling us that we needed to step back and give it some rest.”
The injury caught the Padres by surprise as well. Said general manager A.J. Preller, “At the time of the deadline, we honestly were not looking at Joe as missing a few weeks or extended time or anything like that.” Preller did reinforce the pitching staff by acquiring starter Rich Hill from the Pirates in one deadline-day trade and reliever Scott Barlow from the Royals in another, but they don’t add up to a healthy Musgrove. Read the rest of this entry »
Everyone likes an inspiring story. They don’t call it a Hollywood ending for nothing; people love it when the hero wins before the credits roll. Over innear near-ish the center of American film-making, it looked like the Angels were setting up for another iteration of that classic arc. They were down and out, deciding whether they could stomach trading the best player in the game before losing him forever. The previous best player in the game was out with injury, and the ship was taking on water. Then, a classic mid-story twist: they ripped off an 8-1 run in the latter half of July and decided to go for it one last time.
Yeah, about that. Since trading for Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López to lean fully into this year, they’ve gone 2-9, slipping back below .500. After their playoff odds reached 22.7% on July 27, the Halos have crashed down to 1.3% in short order. That’s a seasonal low for their chances of making the postseason. Things are decidedly non-magical in the land of Disney these days.
What’s gone wrong for the Angels? Well, one thing’s for sure: it’s not Shohei Ohtani. He’s started at DH for all 11 games of the stretch and has hit a ludicrous .405/.542/.649, even better than his seasonal line. He left his lone start in that span early with hand cramps, but pitched four scoreless innings before departing. To the extent that one player can power a team, Ohtani is doing his best. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the strange things about projecting baseball players is that even results themselves are small samples. Full seasons result in specific numbers that have minimal predictive value, such as BABIP for pitchers. The predictive value isn’t literally zero — individual seasons form much of the basis of projections, whether math-y ones like ZiPS or simply our personal opinions on how good a player is — but we have to develop tools that improve our ability to explain some of these stats. It’s not enough to know that the number of home runs allowed by a pitcher is volatile; we need to know how and why pitchers allow homers beyond a general sense of pitching poorly or being Jordan Lyles.
Data like that which StatCast provides gives us the ability to get at what’s more elemental, such as exit velocities and launch angles and the like — things that are in themselves more predictive than their end products (the number of homers). StatCast has its own implementation of this kind of exercise in its various “x” stats. ZiPS uses slightly different models with a similar purpose, which I’ve dubbed zStats. (I’m going to make you guess what the z stands for!) The differences in the models can be significant. For example, when talking about grounders, balls hit directly toward the second base bag became singles 48.7% of the time from 2012 to ’19, with 51.0% outs and 0.2% doubles. But grounders hit 16 degrees to the “left” of the bag only became hits 10.6% of the time over the same stretch, and toward the second base side, it was 9.8%. ZiPS uses data like sprint speed when calculating hitter BABIP, because how fast a player is has an effect on BABIP and extra-base hits.
ZiPS doesn’t discard actual stats; the models all improve from knowing the actual numbers in addition to the zStats. You can read more on how zStats relate to actual stats here. For those curious about the r-squared values between zStats and real stats for the offensive components, it’s 0.59 for zBABIP, 0.86 for strikeouts, 0.83 for walks, and 0.78 for homers. Those relationships are what make these stats useful for predicting the future. If you can explain 78% of the variance in home run rate between hitters with no information about how many homers they actually hit, you’ve answered a lot of the riddle. All of these numbers correlate better than the actual numbers with future numbers, though a model that uses both zStats and actual ones, as the full model of ZiPS does, is superior to either by themselves.
And why is this important and not just number-spinning? Knowing that changes in walk rates, home run rates, and strikeout rates stabilized far quicker than other stats was an important step forward in player valuation. That’s something that’s useful whether you work for a front office, are a hardcore fan, want to make some fantasy league moves, or even just a regular fan who is rooting for your faves. If we improve our knowledge of the basic molecular structure of a walk or a strikeout, then we can find players who are improving or struggling even more quickly, and provide better answers on why a walk rate or a strikeout rate has changed. This is useful data for me in particular because I obviously do a lot of work with projections, but I’m hoping this type of information is interesting to readers beyond that.
As with any model, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and there are always some people that question the value of data such as these. So for this run, I’m pitting zStats against the last two months and all new data that obviously could not have been used in the model without a time machine to see how the zStats did compared to reality. I’m not going to do a whole post for this every time, but this is something that, based on the feedback from the last post in June, people really wanted to see the results for.
Starting with zBABIP, let’s look at how the numbers have shaken out for the leaders and trailers from back in June. I didn’t include players with fewer than 100 plate appearances over the last two months. Read the rest of this entry »
On Monday afternoon, the Astros had an off day before the start of a series in Baltimore, so they did what most defending World Series champions have done under those circumstances, and swung by the White House. There, Dusty Baker and his merry men were fêted by President Joe Biden, who commiserated with the beloved Astros manager over having to wait decades to reach the pinnacle of their respective professions.
What a lovely event, one that raises two questions. First: What the hell, Mr. President, I thought you were a Phillies fan? Between this and the similar ceremony for the Braves a year ago, Biden has used two of his three championship soirees to celebrate a hated division rival and the team that beat the Phillies in the World Series. The Bidens are already on thin ice after the First Lady showed up to watch a white-hot Phillies team in Game 4 of the World Series, only for them to get no-hit and lose three straight to end the season.
That leads into the second question: Encountering a sitting president has to be a provocative experience, even for a professional athlete. What effect does going to the White House have on a defending World Series champion? Read the rest of this entry »
In an attempt to arrest a slide that began in early July, the Diamondbacks were busy in the run-up to the August 1 trade deadline, but so far, their moves haven’t been enough to turn things around. In fact, they have yet to win a game in August, having finished a seven-game road trip by losing six in a row to the Giants and Twins. On Sunday, their highest-profile deadline addition, former Mariners closer Paul Sewald, failed to retire a batter in his first save opportunity since the trade. Instead, he served up a game-tying homer to Max Kepler on his first pitch and then, after a walk, a two-run walk-off homer to Matt Wallner. Ouch.
After spending the majority of the first half leading the NL West, the Diamondbacks have slipped to sixth in the NL Wild Card race, 1.5 games behind the Cubs and Reds, who are tied for the third spot. Their trend is actually worse than that. Since winning on July 1 to lift their record to 50-34 and restore their NL West lead to three games, the Snakes have gone 7-22 (.241). That’s worse than the A’s (9-19, .321) or any other team in the majors. It’s not as though they’ve been particularly jobbed in the process; their Pythagenpat record is the majors’ worst in that span as well:
Worst Record Since Games of July 1
Team
W
L
W-L%
RS
RA
PythW-L%
Diamondbacks
7
22
.241
103
161
.306
White Sox
9
19
.321
110
145
.376
Athletics
9
18
.333
103
138
.369
Marlins
10
19
.345
122
140
.437
Pirates
11
18
.379
107
151
.347
Rays
11
17
.393
111
122
.457
Royals
12
18
.400
130
153
.426
Yankees
12
17
.414
113
145
.388
Rockies
11
15
.423
108
129
.419
Angels
12
16
.429
135
154
.440
Tigers
13
16
.448
121
145
.418
Mets
13
15
.464
112
131
.429
Cleveland
14
16
.467
129
123
.522
Reds
15
16
.484
139
147
.474
Cardinals
15
16
.484
147
147
.500
Giants
15
14
.517
98
114
.431
Brewers
16
14
.533
132
121
.540
Nationals
16
14
.533
148
155
.479
Rangers
16
13
.552
157
145
.536
Braves
15
12
.556
155
128
.587
Red Sox
15
12
.556
134
120
.550
Phillies
17
13
.567
138
127
.538
Twins
17
12
.586
149
134
.548
Padres
17
12
.586
157
112
.650
Blue Jays
18
11
.621
141
105
.632
Astros
19
11
.633
154
144
.531
Dodgers
18
10
.643
175
128
.639
Cubs
20
11
.645
205
156
.622
Mariners
21
10
.677
146
115
.607
Orioles
22
9
.710
165
109
.681
SOURCE: Baseball-Reference
To be fair, the Diamondbacks weren’t expected to be a powerhouse this year; after going 74-88 last year, they projected for 78.4 wins via our preseason Playoff Odds. In a slow-starting NL West, they took over a share of first place for the first time on April 8, when they were 5-4, and finished the month 16-13, which was good enough to tie for first. Despite going 17-10 in May, they didn’t get a share of first place again until June 1, but they spent that entire month atop the division — most of it with sole possession of first place — while going 16-11.
It was around that time that Corbin Carroll’s season started taking an unfortunate turn. On June 29 — the same day he was named as a starter for the National League in the upcoming All-Star Game — the 22-year-old outfielder left a 6-1 loss to the Rays after four innings, having experienced soreness in his right shoulder during a third-inning plate appearance. It was the same shoulder on which he’d undergone surgery to repair a torn labrum in 2021, which cost him nearly the entire season. In the wake of his removal from the game, he underwent strength testing, which showed that his shoulder was strong and stable, but the Diamondbacks gave him a breather, limiting him to a single pitch-hitting appearance over the next three days. After returning to the lineup, he played just three more games before leaving the team’s July 6 tilt against the Mets in the seventh inning, once again in pain. “I took a swing, and I felt a shift in my shoulder, shocking, tingling sensation go down my arm and then my hand go numb,” he told reporters. “I was just holding it thinking it came out of the socket, pretty much thought that the season was over.”
Despite his initial concerns, Carroll had not experienced a dislocation, and his MRI came back clean. He was back in the lineup the next day, and while he’s certainly had his moments since then — and hasn’t missed a game — his production and quality of contact are down considerably since the first incident:
Corbin Carroll Before and After Shoulder Scare
Period
PA
HR
AVG
OBP
SLG
wRC+
EV
Barrel%
Hard-Hit%
Through June 29
323
17
.290
.366
.559
146
90.8
9.4%
42.9%
Since July 1
119
4
.240
.336
.420
105
88.1
5.1%
35.4%
Note that with two hits and two walks on Sunday, Carroll raised his post-July 1 wRC+ nine points; he was at 96 previously. Along the way, his swinging strike rate has spiked from 8.4% to 12.4%, and his chase rate from 28.8% to 32.6%, though his strikeout rate has barely budged, from 19.8% to 20.1%.
Maybe Carroll’s downturn in production is related to his shoulder woes, maybe it’s just the league adjusting to a player who looked like an MVP candidate early in the season, or maybe it’s just regression, more on which below. One way or another, it’s been poorly timed, in part because he’s not the only Diamondback who has tailed off in recent weeks:
First set of statistics (PA, AVG, OBP, SLG, wRC+) through June 30, second set through August 6. Dif = wRC+ in second set relative to first set.
Just four Diamondbacks have a 100 wRC+ or better since the start of July, one of them a catcher (Moreno) who has been limited to 11 of the team’s first 29 games in that span and is now sidelined by left shoulder inflammation. Moreno, Thomas, and McCarthy are the only three players with a higher wRC+ since the start of July than before, and they’re still below average offensively overall. Deadline additions Tommy Pham (from the Mets) and Jace Peterson (from the A’s) have yet to make an impact, going a combined 4-for-30, all singles.
Meanwhile, note that not only has Carroll fallen off steeply but so have Gurriel and Perdomo, both of whom joined him on the NL All-Star squad but might as well be on the side of a milk carton these days. Setting the narrative of Carroll’s shoulder injury to the side for a moment, this is striking:
Diamondbacks All-Stars Regressing
Player
Period
PA
AVG
xBA
SLG
xSLG
wOBA
xwOBA
wOBA-xwOBA
Corbin Carroll
Through June 30
322
.290
.258
.559
.450
.391
.345
.046
Since July 1
119
.240
.265
.420
.439
.330
.350
-.020
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
Through June 30
296
.274
.252
.496
.424
.350
.319
.031
Since July 1
116
.218
.256
.418
.483
.290
.333
-.043
Gerardo Perdomo
Through June 30
249
.285
.208
.435
.279
.360
.280
.080
Since July 1
106
.225
.218
.292
.296
.283
.284
-.001
All three players hit well above their Statcast expected stats through the end of June, particularly Perdomo, a slappy switch-hitter who doesn’t hit the ball hard at all; his season barrel rate is 1.2%, his hard-hit rate 19.9%. Then it’s as though the Regression Monster showed up and took a bite — each of these three players has seen about a 75-point swing in their wOBA-xwOBA differential.
Overall, the Diamondbacks hit .263/.330/.437 through the end of June, ranking fifth in the majors in scoring (5.11 runs per game) and seventh in wRC+ (106). Since then, they’ve hit just .227/.302/.373 while ranking 29th in scoring (3.44 runs per game) and 26th in wRC+ (83). Their performance against every major pitch type except changeups has fallen off by at least 50 points of SLG and 25 points of wOBA:
Diamondbacks Hitters vs. Pitch Types
Four-Seam
PA
AVG
xBA
SLG
xSLG
wOBA
xwOBA
Through June 30
938
.287
.262
.491
.450
.373
.354
Since July 1
344
.254
.239
.401
.404
.348
.344
Sinker
PA
AVG
xBA
SLG
xSLG
wOBA
xwOBA
Through June 30
584
.306
.287
.460
.423
.363
.347
Since July 1
200
.266
.276
.380
.413
.311
.329
Slider/Sweeper
PA
AVG
xBA
SLG
xSLG
wOBA
xwOBA
Through June 30
691
.221
.201
.411
.350
.295
.273
Since July 1
222
.174
.204
.324
.314
.237
.251
Curve
PA
AVG
xBA
SLG
xSLG
wOBA
xwOBA
Through June 30
278
.248
.220
.420
.347
.302
.267
Since July 1
92
.214
.223
.369
.414
.274
.295
Changeup
PA
AVG
xBA
SLG
xSLG
wOBA
xwOBA
Through June 30
341
.256
.262
.394
.385
.297
.299
Since July 1
133
.252
.235
.433
.346
.306
.270
SOURCE: Baseball Savant
Yikes. They were punishing four-seam fastballs earlier in the season, but that’s stopped, and they’ve particularly gotten eaten alive by sliders and sweepers lately. What’s especially strange is the general downward trend of their more recent numbers despite the weather getting even warmer, which tends to increase offense. Of course, it’s as hot as the surface of Mercury in Arizona, so maybe the Diamondbacks have just wilted in the heat.
That does seem to be true with the team’s pitching, particularly the bullpen:
Diamondbacks Pitchers Wilting in the Heat
Split
IP
K%
BB%
HR/9
ERA
FIP
WAR
Rotation Through June 30
443.1
20.3%
8.7%
1.14
4.65
4.33
6.3
Rotation Since July 1
162.2
20.8%
6.2%
1.77
4.92
4.99
1.1
Split
IP
K%
BB%
HR/9
ERA
FIP
WAR
Bullpen Through June 30
295.0
24.1%
9.1%
1.07
4.00
4.03
2.6
Bullpen Since July 1
96.1
23.6%
11.2%
1.87
6.35
5.57
-0.9
Good gravy. In writing about the Sewald trade — which sent Rojas and prospects Dominic Canzone and Ryan Bliss to Seattle — I noted that manager Torey Lovullo had been working with a matchup-based closer-by-committee system involving righties Miguel Castro, Kevin Ginkel and Scott McGough and lefty Andrew Chafin. However, I did not drill down to see just how bad things had gotten for them in the recent past. Using the July 1 cutoff again, with full awareness of the small samples in play, Ginkel has pitched well (0.75 ERA, 2.35 FIP in 12 innings), but the other three had been torched, with Castro (6.00 ERA and 6.60 FIP in 12 IP) the “best” of them, though he had stopped getting ninth-inning save chances, and Chafin (9.95 ERA and 5.63 FIP in 6.1 IP) and McGough (8.76 ERA and 6.91 FIP in 12.1 IP) utterly terrible. Chafin had two blown ninth-inning saves that led to losses in that span; he’s now a Brewer.
As for the rotation, it’s been pretty unstable, with Zac Gallen and rookie Ryne Nelson the only real constants, and both of them experiencing fall-offs since the start of July. Gallen pitched to a 3.02 ERA and 2.73 FIP in 104.1 innings through June, making his first All-Star team, but has yielded a 4.17 ERA and 4.12 FIP in 45.1 innings since, with his home run rate increasing from 0.6 per nine to 1.6. Nelson went from a 4.97 ERA and 4.44 FIP to a 5.59 ERA and 6.19 FIP, not that it should have been too surprising given his double-digit barrel rate even in the “good” times. Merrill Kelly, the team’s second-best starter, missed four weeks (most of July) due to a blood clot in his right calf but has been solid when available. Tommy Henry showed some improvement before being sidelined last week due to elbow inflammation. Brandon Pfaadt has been getting better results since being recalled on July 22 than prior, though his overall ERA of 7.11 in 44.1 innings is pretty damning. Also sporting an unsightly ERA (7.38) is Zach Davies, who has been dreadful on both sides of the divide while missing time with oblique and back injuries. Slade Cecconi, the team’s 2020 first-round pick, just made his major league debut on August 2 in place of Henry and acquitted himself reasonably well in a losing cause against the Giants, though his catcher (Herrera) had a rough time on the rookie’s first strikeout.
Given their current injury situation, the Diamondbacks now find themselves trying to stay afloat with just two starters who have demonstrated the ability to be league average or better, plus three rookies who have combined for a 5.63 ERA and 5.31 FIP. It’s not like the cavalry is on the horizon, either. The team’s playoff odds, which stood at 76.4% through the end of June (24.9% division, 51.5% Wild Card), are down to 21% at this writing, including just a 0.7% chance of overcoming their 8.5-game deficit to win the division. Considering that they lost 110 games just two seasons ago, they’ve certainly made progress to get to this point, but it seems quite apparent given their performance over the past five-plus weeks that they’re not quite ready for prime time.
Sponsor Us on Patreon
Facebook Group
Twitter Account
EW Subreddit
Effectively Wild Wiki
iTunes Feed
Get Our Merch!
Jay Jaffe
