Spencer Strider may be comically overpowering, but his bid to win the NL Cy Young is anything but a cakewalk. Over the course of his past two outings, he’s been hit for 10 runs in 8.2 innings, elevating his ERA from 3.46 to 3.83, higher than any pitcher who has won the award. The truth is that with less than four weeks to go in the season, no NL pitcher — not Strider, Blake Snell, Justin Steele, Zac Gallen or Zack Wheeler, just to run through a partial list of names — has a particularly strong statistical case to win. While each candidate’s remaining few starts may provide some clarity before voters send off their ballots, the race as it stands is worth a closer look.

I’m not a BBWAA voter in this or any of the annual awards this year, but I had been thinking about this race a bit lately thanks to a couple of questions from readers in recent chats and on social media. To that point, my default answer prior to those had been “Strider or Snell,” but I hardly had my mind made up. By a happy coincidence, all of this happened just as we introduced a Cy Young Projections leaderboard based on a simple model created by Tom Tango, using only earned runs, innings pitched, strikeouts, and wins — all counting stats, no rate stats. I know what the leaderboard says, and you can look as well, but I’ll save what it’s telling us about this race until later in this piece. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve always been fascinated by players whose skill sets don’t match their physical makeup. Look at Mookie Betts, a prolific slugger at a mere 5-foot-9. Conversely, there’s Oneil Cruz, a legit shortstop towering over the infield at 6-foot-7. Spencer Strider is one of the smallest starters in the league, and Zach Eflin is one of the tallest, yet the former is the power pitcher, and the latter thrives on finesse. Don’t get me wrong: It’s fun to watch Aaron Judge sock dingers, too. Still, I’ll always have a soft spot for the players who don’t fit the prototype. I suppose a childhood filled with sports movies has conditioned me to root for the underdog.

In the same vein, I’m a fan of slow runners who nonetheless wreak havoc on the basepaths. These players aren’t nearly as common as their opposite; there are far more fast runners who struggle to contribute on the bases. After all, it’s much easier to fail at something despite possessing a natural advantage than to succeed without one. We’ve all met a tall person who stinks at basketball, but you can count the number of average-height players in the NBA on one thumb. And indeed, the scarcity of such players is a big part of what makes them so easy to root for.

Of the 50 slowest runners by sprint speed in 2023, only six have provided positive value on the bases, and only one has a BsR that wouldn’t round down to zero: Ji Man Choi, who has been worth all of 0.6 BsR. Similarly, of the 50 most valuable runners by BsR, only four have a sprint speed below the MLB average of 27 feet per second: Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker, Jose Altuve, and Josh Rojas. Of those four, only Freeman and Rojas have accrued positive baserunning value according to every other major source; Tucker has been below average per Baseball Prospectus, and Altuve has negative scores at both BP and Baseball Savant.

BsR remains my metric of choice, but my point is to highlight just how few players with below-average speed have positive baserunning numbers across the board. Out of 225 qualified runners with a sprint speed below 27 ft/sec, only two are consensus plus baserunners. Freeman and Rojas prove that speed isn’t everything, but the other 223 players show that it’s still pretty darned important. Read the rest of this entry »

One of baseball’s delightful postseason traditions is the introduction of new characters to the national consciousness. During the regular season, the focus is spread out over as many as 15 mostly meaningless games a night. When the calendar turns to October, there is one game going on at a time, maybe two, and each pitch is of colossal importance. Following regular-season baseball is fishing with a net; following postseason baseball is fishing with a sniper rifle.

So every October, we meet players previously unknown or little-considered. We put faces to names and visual recognition to stat lines. And like clockwork, some rookie middle reliever from a non-glamor franchise (usually but not always the Rays) will come out in the eighth inning of a game against the Astros or Dodgers and cut through three straight All-Stars like a hot wire through Styrofoam.

If you care about spoiling key postseason narratives, you should stop reading. If not, you’ll want to learn about Abner Uribe. Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, Labor Day. The weather is perfect (unless you’re in New York), there’s a well-placed day off of work, and playoff races are in full swing. It’s a great overall time for sports — football is starting up, and the US Open is headed toward a thunderous final. If your team isn’t in the hunt for October, it can be easy to tune out; I wouldn’t blame you for going somewhere else for your sporting needs. But don’t worry: you can still get your fix of baseball, so long as you’re willing to consume it in five bite-sized increments. Shout out, as always, to Zach Lowe, who was making lists of NBA things he likes and doesn’t like before it was cool. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss listener responses to their banter about surprising Statcast throwing speeds, then (12:42) discuss Nick Ahmed’s unsung great glovework, the A’s turning out to be (slightly) less historically terrible than they initially seemed, the AL West race, and how the Rangers missing the playoffs would reinforce conflicting narratives about baseball. After that (57:24), they answer listener emails about Mookie Betts overtaking Mike Trout in career WAR, how to tell when a team gets good at player development, and where it would be easiest to hide a smaller base among bigger bases, plus a Future Blast (1:32:26) from 2056.

Audio intro: Josh Busman, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to just-noticeable difference
Link to Ahmed DFA story
Link to FG WAR change post
Link to Lawlar call-up story
Link to study on Gold Gloves
Link to DRS leaderboard
Link to OAA leaderboard
Link to Fielding RV leaderboard
Link to Nichols’ Law
Link to Dan S. on the A’s in May
Link to Tango on the A’s in May
Link to EW on the A’s in May
Link to The Athletic on the Tigers
Link to CBS Sports on the Tigers
Link to worst run differentials
Link to BaseRuns records
Link to Fisher interview
Link to Fisher’s notepad
Link to FG playoff odds
Link to Kram on the AL West
Link to Astros HR fact 1
Link to Astros HR fact 2
Link to FG payroll ranking
Link to Ben on spending and wins
Link to highest WARs through 30
Link to those players post-30
Link to Driveline dev study 1
Link to Driveline dev study 2
Link to story on Benoit’s slider
Link to pitching lab story 1
Link to pitching lab story 2
Link to pitching lab story 3
Link to pitching lab story 4
Link to listener emails database
Link to Rick Wilber’s website
Link to Future Blast wiki
Link to visual acuity research
Link to Sam on Hamilton

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The Rangers have been sputtering, losing 15 of their last 19 since August 15 to turn a 3.5-game AL West lead into a three-game deficit, with the Astros, who just swept a three-game series from them at Globe Life Field, and Mariners both above them. Yet even as the team’s offense has dried up, Corey Seager has been on a tear. Since returning from a sprained right thumb at the beginning of August, the Rangers shortstop has homered 13 times in 30 games; this past week, he finally accumulated enough plate appearances to take over the AL leads in both batting average and wRC+. If not for Shohei Ohtani, Seager would have a pretty decent case for an MVP award, even with his absences.

Seager only missed nine games due to his thumb sprain, which he suffered on July 21 sliding into second base in a game against the Dodgers. That was his second trip to the injured list this year, as he also missed 31 games from April 12–May 17 due to a left hamstring strain. Yet the interruptions haven’t hindered him at all. Read the rest of this entry »

As somebody who grew up playing baseball and continued to play through college, I’m familiar with all the old school adages that this game has. As I tried to develop my own abilities, I needed to figure out which were true, which were false, and which had some grey area. Swing down, for example, is not necessarily what hitters do in practice, and I had to relearn that. Then there is the “squish the bug” cue for your back foot. That actually makes most hitters get too spinny and reinforces an incorrect interaction with the ground. These are just a few hitting examples. But for this piece, I’m going to focus on stealing bases.

When an aggressive base stealer is on first, they command a level of mental real estate in a pitcher’s mind, though it’s important to note not every pitcher is the same. Some are more equipped to handle a runner than others. That could be due to a good pickoff move, quick time to the plate, or simply because a guy remains unfazed no matter the situation. This is all common knowledge. What isn’t, and what I’ve been pondering as one of the grey area tropes, is whether pitchers change their pitch mix when there is a threat to run. In general, I always thought this was true, but I never went back and looked at any data to confirm it. But we live in a baseball world with solid data accessibility, and luckily, this question can be answered thanks to Baseball Savant. Read the rest of this entry »

On June 3, Aaron Judge made a spectacular running catch that ended in a clash with the right field wall at Dodger Stadium. The play safeguarded what was ultimately a 6–3 victory that brought the Yankees’ record to 35–25 and their playoff odds to 80.1%, but both sides of the collision — wall and player — suffered tremendous damage in the process:

The fence wasn’t supposed to open in that direction, but Judge’s right foot wasn’t supposed to bend that way either; no amount of Spike Lee celebrations could change that.

The resulting injury to the towering right fielder’s big toe kept him out until July 28, and when he returned, expectations had diminished for both him and his team. The Yankees had gone just 19–23 in their captain’s absence, dropping their playoff odds to 32%. And there was no guarantee that the diminished version of Judge, who just three weeks earlier disclosed that the toe might never feel the same, would prop the Bombers back up. Read the rest of this entry »

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Jonah Heim take a called strike that he felt should have been a ball. As a catcher, Heim knew better than to argue. Instead, he performed the delicate dance of the catcher who wants to make a point without showing up the umpire. I’m not sure if the clip below is the exact pitch I saw, but it’s certainly representative of the conundrum a catcher faces when he doesn’t like the strike zone.

You can see Heim duck his head and furtively say something to home plate umpire Doug Eddings. I like to imagine that whatever he says begins with, “I beg your pardon, good sir.” He doesn’t make a show of his displeasure. He asks something, Eddings nods his head yes, and everyone moves on with their lives. Still, Heim thinks he’s seen ball two, and it’s hard to blame him. Even the person operating the score bug got fooled.

For some reason, that little moment has been rattling around in my head. I tend to think too much about the relationship between umpires and catchers. It doesn’t seem possible that they could spend every night doing what they do in the proximity that they do it in without developing a bond. Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Miller was pitching in High-A when I first interviewed him for FanGraphs in June 2021. Drafted 29th overall the previous summer by the Los Angeles Dodgers out of the University of Louisville, the right-hander possessed both a high-octane heater and a lofty ceiling. Since making his MLB debut this past May, he’s met those expectations, going 9–3 with a 3.80 ERA and a 3.67 FIP over 17 starts. The 24-year-old is also coming off of his most impressive outing. Facing the powerhouse Atlanta Braves on September 3, he allowed just three hits and one run in a career-high seven innings.

Miller discussed his continuing evolution as a pitcher and his efforts to find consistency with his slider when the Dodgers visited Fenway Park in late August.

———

David Laurila: We talked two years ago when you were pitching for the Great Lakes Loons. What has changed and what has stayed the same since that time?

Bobby Miller: “A lot of stuff is the same. At the end of the day, it’s still the same game. But the competition is obviously a lot higher. The hitters are lot more disciplined and experienced. Most of them have seen the game’s best arms, so when you’re out there, you’ve got to know that they’ve faced guys just as good or better than you are.

“Game-planning comes in a lot more at this level. I feel like game-planning is super important to learn in the minor leagues, studying hitters and all that, and I wish I’d have learned more before I came up here. While I had somewhat of an idea, I still have a lot of room to improve on that. I think that’s the biggest thing for me: how much time I spend looking at the upcoming lineups I’m going to face.”

Laurila: Basically, what hitters’ hot and cold zones are, and what they hit and don’t hit in certain counts.

Miller: “Yeah. What to avoid in certain counts. When they’re aggressive and when they’re not aggressive. How aggressive they are with runners in scoring position. At some point, I could get better at learning the baserunners, too. But at the end of the day, the most important thing is getting the batter out of the box. It’s about getting outs for your team.” Read the rest of this entry »