Before this season, Nick Madrigal had spent just one inning at third base. It was in a showcase game; he was a high schooler. Madrigal played a fair bit of shortstop at Oregon State, but he has always primarily been a second baseman. Then in December, the Cubs signed Dansby Swanson, bumping Nico Hoerner over to second and Madrigal into a utility role.
Madrigal took the change in stride. He started a long toss regimen to improve his arm strength, and said all the right things to the press:
Bench coach Andy Green even flew out to Arizona to spend a week helping him get up to speed at the hot corner. All of that work seems to have paid off. So far this season, Madrigal has spent 53 innings at second and 303.2 at third. As a third baseman, DRS and OAA both have him at +4, DRP has him at +1.1, and UZR has him at -0.1. Again, that’s after exactly playing exactly one inning at the position when he was a teenager.
It looks like Madrigal’s regular playing time at third is coming to an end, though. Patrick Wisdom is returning from the IL, and Madrigal just started his own IL stint due to a right hamstring strain. It’s a disheartening development for many reasons: Because he needed season-ending surgery on that same hamstring in 2021; because it makes his spot on the Cubs’ roster even more precarious; because he was on pace to have the most productive season of his young career; and because he does something really fun when he plays third base. I’ve been struggling with how to put it into words, so before I make my attempt, let’s see if you can spot it for yourself.
I don’t have a good sense of whether or not you’ll notice what I want you to notice. Maybe you saw it right away. Maybe you’re a Cubs fan and you already noticed it earlier this year. Or maybe it’s the kind of thing that you don’t notice until someone points it out, and then you can never not notice it. To make it a little easier, I combined two frames from that clip: I took the moment when Madrigal fielded the ball, then I added the moment when he threw it over to first.
Those two Nick Madrigals are in very, very different places. The first one is fielding the ball in a normal position roughly 15 feet behind the bag. Somehow the second one is way over on the right, about to make his throw with a foot on the infield grass. That’s a whole lot of infield to traverse right in the middle of a routine groundout. Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t want to be rude, but here’s a fact of life: I pay less attention to the Nationals than the average team in Major League Baseball. It’s not because I have a grudge against them or anything; I went to college in Virginia and have a ton of family in the D.C. area, so I know an absolute ton of Nats fans. They’re just not that interesting at the moment, and there’s a lot of baseball to watch, so someone has to slide down the priority queue.
When I have paid attention to the Nationals, though, I’ve liked what I’ve seen. I thought they made some smart signings this offseason. They’ve done a good job of giving plenty of playing time to interesting players. Lane Thomas might never have found a regular home if the Nats hadn’t come calling, Joey Meneses is being given every chance to play out of a season-starting slump, and Hunter Harvey looks like a nice bullpen arm for the trade deadline.
In my chat this week, someone mentioned that the Tigers would be in the thick of the AL Central race if they’d merely held onto Jeimer Candelario and Isaac Paredes. And that drove a realization for me: Candelario looks good again. Is he the real deal? Can some contending team plug him in at third base and have an All-Star–level contributor? Let’s find out. Read the rest of this entry »
One of my favorite picks in the first round of this year’s draft was the 14th overall selection, when Virginia catcher Kyle Teel fell into Boston’s lap and the Red Sox gobbled him right up, thank you very much. The New Jersey native has backstopped the Cavaliers to two trips to Omaha in three seasons of college ball. He’s a winner, he’s a grinder, and WEEI callers are going to fall in love with this kid within about 30 minutes of his big league debut. “This is the leadahship the Sawx have needed since Pedroia, Murph!” and so on.
All that would be perilous enough to national mental hygiene on its own, but Teel is also really good. He’s going to stick behind the plate. He’s also going to hit — maybe not 20-homer power, but a ton of doubles and line drives that rattle around in the nooks and crannies of Fenway Park’s unique outfield. I’m surprised he fell into the teens, but great work by Boston for stopping the slide when he got to them.
Teel was one of three catchers taken in the first round on Sunday. A pair of high schoolers, Blake Mitchell and Ralphy Velazquez, went eighth to Kansas City and 23rd to Cleveland, respectively. (Teel to the Royals as heir presumptive to Salvador Perez was a popular prediction in the days before the draft, but it was not to be.) Both Mitchell and Velazquez (20th and 45th on the pre-draft Board) are bat-first prospects. Neither is a lock to stay behind the plate, but both can hit the ball a long way when they make contact. Read the rest of this entry »
Marcus Semien isn’t on pace to match his career-best 2019 and 2021 numbers, but he remains a productive hitter. Two months shy of his 33rd birthday and in his second season with the Texas Rangers, the venerable middle infielder is slashing .271/.338/.438 with 11 home runs and a 115 wRC+. A key cog in the lineup for a first place club, Semien batted leadoff for the American League in last night’s All-Star Game.
Semien sat down to talk hitting during the Rangers’ recent visit to Fenway Park.
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David Laurila: Let’s start with your formative years in the game. How did you learn to hit?
Marcus Semien: “As a kid, I watched major league baseball. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area as a Giants fan — my dad is a Giants fan — and we always had baseball on. From there, I was imitating Barry Bonds’ swing, Jeff Kent’s swing — all those guys I used to watch as a kid. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s experiences at the Futures Game, the draft, and the Home Run Derby, Derby highlights, the Derby on TV vs. in person, Elly De La Cruz’s mad dash, and the Yankees switching hitting coaches, plus a Future Blast (49:12) from 2031. Then (54:25) Ben talks to FanGraphs lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen about the draft and other topics, including the strength of the draft pool, the Pirates picking a pitcher (Paul Skenes) first, the effect of the top two picks being LSU players, the mostly predictable top of the draft, the draft’s two-way prospects and the potential for more two-way players, the wisdom of drafting for need, the teams that had the most commendable and perplexing drafts, the Marlins demoting Eury Pérez, the Rockies’ sparsely populated draft room, how visual machine learning and artificial intelligence are affecting scouting, and more.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. wasn’t exactly the forgotten man at the 2023 Home Run Derby at T-Mobile Park; this scribe was hardly alone in predicting he’d win. But the 24-year-old slugger didn’t put up an astronomical total of dingers the way hometown favorite Julio Rodríguez did in the first round (breaking Guerrero’s own 2019 record of 40 homers, at that). Nor did he cruise into the finals by a lopsided score the way Randy Arozarena did in knocking off the top-seeded Luis Robert Jr. in the semifinals. Guerrero did start his night by steamrolling Mookie Betts, then narrowly eked out wins over both Rodríguez and Arozarena to take home the championship that eluded him in 2019, when he was runner-up to Pete Alonso. In victory, he joined his father, who won in 2007, as the first father-son duo to win the Derby. Congrats to Vlad and Dad.
With Blue Jays manager John Schneider serving as his pitcher, Guerrero — one of just three contestants who had participated in a previous Derby, along with Alonso and Rodríguez — needed until his fifth swing to get on the board, but once he did, with a 453-footer, he found his groove. He beat Betts handily, 26–11, then walked off against Rodríguez, needing just one homer in bonus time to win, 21–20. He hit 25 in the finals, a record for the shorter round (two minutes instead of three), then had to wait out Arozarena, who finished regulation with 20. Crucially, Arozarena only had the standard 30 seconds of extra time because he hadn’t gotten the distance bonus, unlocked when a player hit two homers with projected distances of at least 440 feet — something Guerrero managed in all three rounds. Arozarena ran out of both gas and time as his final fly balls fell short; he finished with 23 homers to make Guerrero the champion, the second-youngest in history by a day (1993 winner Juan Gonzalez was younger).
Guerrero will serve as a reserve for Tuesday night’s All-Star Game after starting at first base in each of the past two seasons. Yandy Díaz was voted to start for the AL, and it’s tough to complain when he’s hitting .323/.408/.515 for a 165 wRC+, the highest of any first baseman in either league by 10 points (NL starter Freddie Freeman is second at 155) and the second-highest of any qualified hitter behind only Shohei Ohtani.
Diaz’s 165 wRC+ is reminiscent of the league-leading 166 Guerrero put up during his 2021 season. We’re now two years removed from that breakout campaign, when at age 22, Vladito made a run at the Triple Crown, falling short but still hitting an impressive .311/.401/.601 with 48 homers and 6.3 WAR. His home run total led the league, as did his on-base percentage, a small consolation for finishing “only” third in batting average; likewise, he led in total bases and slugging percentage and was second in WAR, a pretty good offset for finishing “only” fifth in RBIs.
When you’re 22 years old and the son of a Hall of Famer, a season like that sends expectations into the stratosphere, so it’s come as something of a disappointment that Guerrero’s follow-up seasons have not been up to that standard. He hit .274/.339/.480 with 32 homers, a 132 wRC+, and 2.8 WAR last year, and arrived at the All-Star break batting .274/.344/.443 with 13 homers, a 120 wRC+, and (gulp) 0.4 WAR this year. A good — or not-so-good, actually — part of that decline in value is Guerrero’s defense, which has gone downhill quickly. I’ll get to that below, but what everyone is wondering is what’s happened to his offense. In looking at his numbers, a few things stand out. Read the rest of this entry »
Come with me, friends, and let’s talk about Hurston Waldrep. When the Braves took the former Florida Gator 24th overall on Sunday night, no less an authority than Eric Longenhagen called the pick “a huge coup.” As a college starter, Waldrep struggled to throw strikes, but he has the most eye-watering repertoire of any college pitcher in this draft, Paul Skenes excluded. Behold, Waldrep’s start against South Carolina in Game 2 of the Gainesville Super Regional.
As a South Carolina partisan, I couldn’t muster the energy to be upset at suffering a season-ending loss. Waldrep allowed three hits and struck out 13 over eight scoreless innings, and honestly the Gamecocks could’ve kept going up there and hacking until the following Tuesday afternoon and they still wouldn’t have scored off Waldrep. Every fan has seen their team lose games like that. It’s a humbling experience.
Waldrep can be so unhittable because he possesses skills that are relatively common in isolation (with one very important exception) but unusual in combination. And it’s hard to imagine professional hitters faring much better against him. Read the rest of this entry »
Starting around five or six years old, adults begin to demand that children declare what they want to be when they grow up. Despite the imprecise language used to frame the question, it’s generally understood that the question does not refer to the human qualities they wish to develop, but rather how the child plans to sell their time so as to afford the ever-increasing costs of existing in the world. At that point in time, kids know about roughly half a dozen jobs: doctor, teacher, lawyer, firefighter, dentist, and whatever their parents do for work. These jobs have clear-cut career paths with specific college degrees, certifications, and post-grad programs. So once a child with an underdeveloped brain makes a declaration regarding the rest of their life, they know the exact steps to follow to achieve their dreams.
For kids who dream of becoming professional baseball players, the path to the majors is a well-traveled, multi-lane interstate. The big league superhighway has several lanes moving at different paces — some with deep ruts, others with potholes, and quite a few that become exit-only without providing enough advance notice to merge left. Despite the difficult travel conditions, the route itself is quite clear.
Or at least it has been under the present system. But small shifts within the sport at the amateur, collegiate, and professional levels may open up additional routes to those looking for an alternative to sitting in rush hour traffic. In the current era of baseball, prospects drafted by MLB organizations are near locks to sign, with the only exceptions tending to involve college commitments or medical uncertainties. Conventional logic dictates that the most efficient path to the majors is getting into a major league system as early as possible and start working your way up the ladder. Some parents might feel more comfortable with the backup plan built into the college route, and players do on occasion move into that lane, but players with the singular goal of playing in the big leagues want to don an affiliated uniform the first chance they get.
That’s the current calculus done by most draft prospects, and that is likely to remain the calculus moving forward. But shifts within the sport don’t happen with the swiftness of a Google Maps reroute to avoid a pile-up ahead. Typically, progress is incremental, with a few innovators on the fringes making moves that, if successful, eventually become mainstream. In recent years, a series of subtle changes suggest a widespread shift may be on the horizon, depending on how those directing traffic within the sport choose to respond. The contraction of the minor leagues, the reduction in rounds within the draft, college programs innovating within player development, and the broadening of financial opportunities for college athletes have the collective potential to change the decision-making process for draftees. Read the rest of this entry »
In the midst of a season in which he won AL Rookie of the Year honors and helped the Mariners break their 21-year playoff drought, Julio Rodríguez took a star turn at the 2022 Home Run Derby. The 21-year-old phenom thrilled the crowd at Dodger Stadium by crushing 32 homers in the first round, including nine of at least 440 feet, and defeated Corey Seager, 32-24. He followed that by knocking off two-time defending champion Pete Alonso in the semifinals, 31-23, before falling to Juan Soto in the finals, 19-18. With this year’s Derby taking place at Seattle’s T-Mobile Park, Rodríguez will try to become the fourth player to win the event on his home field, after the Cubs’ Ryne Sandberg (1990), the Reds’ Todd Frazier (2015), and the Nationals’ Bryce Harper (2018).
What’s more, Rodríguez, who’s seeded seventh this year on the basis of the eight participants’ home run totals through July 4, will again match up with the second-seeded Alonso in the first round — a pairing that coincidentally features the only two returning participants from last year. The stakes are high for Alonso here, as he’s still seeking to join Seattle icon Ken Griffey Jr. as the only three-time winners in Derby history. To do that, he may have to defeat another familiar opponent: sixth-seeded Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was the runner-up when Alonso won for the first time in 2019.
I’ll get to the participants shortly, but first, the format, which is along the lines of what has been used for the event since 2015, a set of changes that has done wonders for the watchability of this spectacle. The competition will be an eight-man, single elimination bracket that uses timed rounds of three minutes apiece for the first two rounds and two minutes for the final round, by which point the competitors are generally pretty gassed. Each competitor gets an additional 30-second bonus in each round, and can earn an additional 30-second bonus if he hits at least two home runs with projected distances of at least 440 feet according to Statcast.
Each player is allowed to call one 45-second timeout for use during regulation time; it can’t be used during bonus time, though each player will get a break between the regulation and bonus segments. The lower-seeded player in each round goes first, and the round will end in the equivalent of a walk-off if the higher seed surpasses his total. If two contestants are tied after the bonus time, they each get a 60-second round with no bonus time or timeouts, and if they’re still tied after that, they each get rounds of three swings apiece until a winner is decided. The winner of the Derby will take home $1 million of the $2.5 million total pot.
The Derby arrives amid a season in which home run rates are on the rebound thanks at least in part to a livelier ball — one with a lower coefficient of drag — than last year’s. Where teams averaged 1.07 home runs per game last year, the lowest mark since 2015, they’re up to 1.16 this year, right around where they were in ’16 and ’18 but still below the record-setting ’19 season (1.39 per game) and the elevated rates of ’20 and ’21. Similarly, hard-hit fly balls — those with an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher — are traveling an average of 366 feet, one foot farther than last year but one less than 2021, and nine feet below the peak in 2019. However, they don’t carry as well at T-Mobile Park, which is just 10 feet above sea level, near the water, and one of the toughest parks to hit in overall. This year, those same hard-hit fly balls are averaging 359 feet at T-Mobile, one foot less than last year and nine feet less than 2019:
The impact of T-Mobile’s home run suppression is mainly upon left-handed batters, owing to the longer distance to right-center (385 feet) than left-center (378 feet). Lefty hitters have a 94 park home run factor by our five-year methodology (six percent below league average), where righties have a 102 factor (two percent above league average). By Statcast’s three-year methodology, the split is more extreme, with 90 for lefties and 104 for righties. Thus it shouldn’t be all that surprising that all of the contestants in this year’s Derby are righties, save for switch-hitter Adley Rutschman, who figures to bat righty. On that note, here’s the full bracket:
And here’s a look at the field with some relevant stats:
All statistics through July 9. EVF (exit velocity on fly balls), Avg HR (average home-run distance) and 440 (career total of home runs projected for at least 440 feet) via Baseball Savant. # = Switch hitter.
The method of seeding is unsophisticated, as the players are ranked based upon how many home runs they had hit when the field was finalized on July 4, with home runs since June 15 used as a tiebreaker. By that methodology, one had to go all the way down to the tie for 63rd to include all eight participants. Home run totals are hardly the only measure of a slugger’s capability, particularly in this context, and while it’s fair to question the applicability of any of the above metrics I’ve gathered when it comes to non-game situations, it’s worth appreciating the perspective they provide on this group. I’ve gone beyond the raw totals to show how often each contestant homers per plate appearance, per batted ball [HR/ (AB – SO + SF)], and per fly ball, with their average exit velocities on flies, their average projected home run distance, and their barrel rate, which according to a 2019 study by Devan Fink correlates best with recent Derby success. I’ve also included each player’s Statcast-era total of homers with projected distances of least 440 feet, the threshold that the recent Derbies (save for the 2021 one at Coors Field) have used for the distance bonus.
Honestly, it’s not the most dazzling field. Not that they would have participated if healthy, but it’s a bummer not to have Aaron Judge or Mike Trout; the latter has never participated in the contest. We don’t get Shohei Ohtani, major league home run leader, though it’s tough to begrudge the two-way superstar some rest on the heels of what may have been the greatest month in major league history. No Ronald Acuña Jr., who’s not only in the midst of an incredible season in terms of power and speed but also hits for incredible distance; his 426-foot average on home runs is the highest among any player with more than three homers. There’s no Soto to defend his title, and no Harper, either, though that’s understandable given the latter’s less-than-full-powered recovery from offseason Tommy John surgery. Guerrero is actually the only other participant besides Rodríguez and Alonso with previous experience in this contest, and one of only three participants with 100 career homers, compared to seven of eight last year.
Still, it’s a fun enough format that it should be entertaining nonetheless. Here’s a look at the four matchups
(1) Robert vs. (8) Rutschman
The 25-year-old Robert is in the midst of his best season. He’s second in the AL in homers behind Ohtani, and has already hit more than his 2021 and ’22 seasons combined (25). That has something to do with staying healthy, as he played just 166 games in those two seasons, but he’s also barreling the ball more consistently this year. He has the second-highest barrel rate of the group, as well as the second-highest average home run distance, and until Sunday he was also second in fly ball exit velocity before slipping behind in a crowded field. Given all that, he could be a very fun contestant.
The 25-year-old Rutschman is already an All-Star, a franchise cornerstone, and a face of baseball in the making, but statistically, it’s hard to make a case as to why he’s part of this field. He’s last among the group in every category above — sometimes by a lot — except for average home run distance, where he leapfrogged from sixth to fourth on Sunday by hitting the longest home run of his career, a 461-footer into the upper deck at Target Field; in fact, that’s the longest of any of this year’s Derby participants as well. What he has going for him beyond that demonstration of potential power is the local hook. He’s a native of Portland who starred at Oregon State, and he’s easily the best choice of candidates who are either native to Oregon or Washington or went to college in those states (apologies to Michael Conforto and Jake Lamb). That should make him one of the fan favorites.
(2) Alonso vs. (7) Rodríguez
Before suffering a bone bruise and sprained left wrist when he was hit by a Charlie Morton pitch on June 7, the 28-year-old Alonso was setting a 57-homer pace. In placing him on the IL, the Mets announced, “A typical return to play for this type of injury is approximately 3–4 weeks,” but Alonso spent just the minimum 10 days sidelined. He’s homered four times since returning and is currently tied with Betts for second in the NL in homers, but has hit just .147/.267/.347 since the injury while producing an average exit velocity of 87 mph, with an 7.7% barrel rate. All of which is to say that he may not be 100%, which is a shame, because a healthy Alonso is as perfectly built for this competition as any player in the majors. One thing to note is that where Mets bench coach Dave Jauss was a big part of Alonso’s success as his pitcher in the last two Derbies, this time around Mike Friedlein, Alonso’s travel ball coach from when he was a Tampa teenager, will be throwing to him.
At 22, Rodríguez is the youngest participant for the second year in a row. His season thus far hasn’t been up to the level of his stellar rookie campaign, though the drop-off isn’t as wide as his 51-point drop in wOBA suggests. His exit velocity is 0.8 mph higher and his Best Speed exit velo — the average of his top 50% of batted balls, a better indictor of performance — has improved as well (from 103.7 mph to 104.1). That said, he’s not barreling or pulling the ball as often, he’s hitting it on the ground more, and his maximum exit velocity has fallen from 117.2 mph to 115.5. His average home run distance is the lowest in the field, and he has the highest share of homers projected for less than 400 feet (61.5%), though his ballpark may be to blame, as he’s averaging eight feet fewer on his home homers (390 feet vs. 398). Still, it’s clear from last year that he knows what he’s doing in this format, and not hard to imagine the T-Mobile crowd giving him a lift.
(3) Betts vs. (6) Guerrero
The 30-year-old Betts is the oldest and most accomplished player in this field, the career leader in homers (239), the only former MVP, and already a likely Hall of Famer (he’s 14th in JAWS among right fielders, ahead of Tony Gwynn, Ichiro Suzuki, Dave Winfield, and the elder Vladimir Guerrero). At 5-foot-9, 180 pounds, he doesn’t look like a home run hitter, but after setting a career high with 35 last year, he’s on pace for 47 this year, and just three leadoff homers away from tying the single-season record of 13. He’s not much of a distance guy; just two of his career homers have reached the magic 440-foot mark, and half his homers this year had projected distances under 400 feet, a share higher than all but Rodríguez.
The 24-year-old Guerrero, on the other hand, is a distance guy. Sixteen of his 117 career homers (13.7%) have been 440-footers or longer, edging Alonso (13.3%) for the highest rate of this group. Meanwhile, Guerrero’s 409-foot average for homers is three feet farther than any of the others, and he has the lowest share of sub-400 foot homers of the group this year (30.8%). Like Rodríguez, he isn’t having a big season with the bat, but he is hitting the ball much harder than his slash stats suggest; his .547 xSLG is 104 points higher than his SLG. In other words, he brings the thunder. Of the lower seeds, he’s got the best shot at winding up in the finals.
(4) García vs. (5) Arozarena
Not only does this matchup pit a pair of Cuban players against each other, but both García and Arozarena were teammates in the Cardinals’ minor league chain before being traded away. They remain close friends, and García is godfather to Arozarena’s daughter. If the top-seeded Robert advances out of the first round to face the winner here, that semifinals matchup will also be an all-Cuban affair.
The 30-year-old García leads the group in terms of both barrel rate and average exit velocity on fly balls. His four homers of at least 440 feet puts him in the upper half here, though note that while the 28-year-old Arozarena has none, his average distance is just one foot less than that of his pal. Though not a particularly prolific home run hitter — he’s topped out at 20 in his two full seasons — Arozarena has been hitting the ball much harder this year, with his barrel rate and other Statcast numbers career highs. And as his postseason resumé and star turn for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic have shown, he’s a player who absolutely thrives in the spotlight. That could be a big help in this contest.
If you’ve read this far, you probably want some predictions, and while I’m no expert in prognostication, my track record since joining the FanGraphs staff includes the Harper and Alonso wins in 2018-19 — the latter over Guerrero in the finals, even (not that I was going too far out on a limb either time). I haven’t done as well in recent years, however, and while my impulse is to pick Alonso based on his career resumé, instead I’m going with Guerrero over Robert in the finals. More than anything, I’m hopeful that despite the relative lack of star power, this contest will provide thrills on the level of recent Derbies.
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