FanGraphs Audio: Dan Hayes Celebrates Joe Mauer, Michael Baumann Talks Baumann

Episode 1010

On this week’s show, we consider the career of a potential Hall of Famer before getting to know one of our writers better.

  • With Joe Mauer destined for the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame and set to arrive on the Cooperstown ballot for the first time this year as well, Jay Jaffe felt it appropriate to chat with Dan Hayes of The Athletic about the hometown hero. Jay and Dan discuss how stellar Mauer was despite a relatively short resume, and how the brutality of the catcher position combined with the brutality of his concussion symptoms only makes his performance even more impressive. The pair agree Mauer should probably be a slam-dunk pick for the Hall, but they expect some debate about it along the way. [4:02]
  • After that, Ben Clemens is joined by Michael Baumann for the latest edition of FanGraphs Backstories. We get the story of Michael’s sportswriting career before ending up at FanGraphs, including grad school and stops at Crashburn Alley (RIP) and The Ringer. Michael also shares some of his favorite baseball memories from over the years, the most notable of which actually concern college and Little League ball. Finally, Ben and Michael discuss the 2023 SABR Awards (both have nominated pieces) and how their writing styles have adapted to FanGraphs. [27:15]

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 65 minute play time.)


At This Point in Giancarlo Stanton’s Career, Health Is the Main Barrier to Success

Giancarlo Stanton
Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

In baseball, there are two sounds that can’t quite be matched: the pop of the catcher’s glove after a sizzling fastball, and the sound of the ball being crushed by the meaty part of the barrel. No one is more familiar with the latter than Giancarlo Stanton. In the Statcast era, no hitter has consistently hit the ball as hard as he has; his otherworldly bat speed leads to some of the most impressive batted balls you’ll ever see.

Stanton’s outlier ability to hit the ball like it came out of a rocket will always raise his floor as a hitter compared to the average player. If you hit the ball like he does, even pounding it on the ground isn’t a huge concern. That doesn’t mean Stanton is impervious, however. You can’t post an exit velocity if you swing through the ball, and if he were to start making less contact, it would be a problem. In 2022, Stanton’s hit tool looked closer to that of Joey Gallo than Aaron Judge, which led to his worst full season in pinstripes by wRC+, and perhaps since his rookie year all the way back in 2010. His .211 batting average and .293 on-base percentage were both more than 50 points off his career marks. And while that decline could be partially attributed to Stanton entering his mid-30s, that’s not the only factor at play here.

Stanton’s season was marred by injury. He constantly dealt with lower leg injuries; ankle tendinitis, a calf strain, and a bruised foot all messed with the way he interacted with the ground, and it showed at the plate. As a rotational athlete, your ability to exude force into the ground is directly tied to the stability of your lower half. When a hitter’s stride foot lands, it sends energy into the ground that shoots back up for the lower half to absorb. If you stomp on the ground, there is a wave of energy that recoils through your legs and hips that you must control if you want to transfer that energy into your swing. Any hitter’s ability to do this would be disrupted by a single lower leg injury. That only worsens when you deal with injuries on both sides of your body like Stanton did, which can lead to multiple energy leakages that completely throw off your swing. For Stanton, those can be seen in the atypical movement of his feet before and during his rotation.

I’m going to show you exactly what that looked like, but first, let’s detail some of the ways Stanton struggled relative to previous seasons from a statistical perspective:

Giancarlo Stanton’s Performance in New York
Year wRC+ AVG Zone Contact % wOBA v. Fastballs PA
2018 128 .266 76.6 .415 705
2019 139 .288 77.3 .365 72
2020 143 .250 74.7 .428 94
2021 137 .273 76.5 .410 579
2022 115 .211 71.0 .320 452

Stanton’s drop in performance can be seen in his increased whiff rate in the zone and general performance against fastballs. A general rule of thumb is that great hitters crush fastballs. If a pitcher makes a mistake with a heater in the middle of the plate, they will pay the price. That becomes more difficult as velocity rises, but that’s where the great hitters set themselves apart from good hitters. Stanton has never been one to be overwhelmed by high velocity; in fact, he’s always been well above league average. But his injuries compromised his connection to the ground, and as a result, he struggled. The table below details his performance against high-velocity fastballs as a Yankee:

Stanton Against 95+ MPH Pitches
Year Total Seen wOBA
2018 397 0.375
2019 63 .374
2020 54 0.640
2021 393 .359
2022 403 .294

Stanton has dealt with soft tissue injuries for his entire tenure in New York, but he has still hit when he’s been on the field, including against high-velocity fastballs. But his .294 wOBA against this group of pitches was .017 points below league average and a big drop from his .359 mark in 2021, which was .049 points higher than the league average. This regression can be zoomed out on a more macro level, too. Stanton’s performance in the heart of the zone against fastballs also changed from 2021 to ’22:

Stanton Against Fastballs In Heart
Year Overall wOBA/xwOBA Overall K% wOBA/xwOBA Behind in Count K% Behind in Count
2018 .440/.460 13.5 .461/.469 28.9
2019 .261/.310 14.0 > 10 pitches > 10 pitches
2020 .526/.547 14.7 > 10 pitches > 10 pitches
2021 .459/.501 15.2 .493/.523 35.7
2022 .444/.382 34.1 .307/.259 56.3
SOURCE: Baseball Savant

There are a few takeaways from this. First, the drop in xwOBA in 2022 tells us Stanton’s expected stats were significantly worse than previous years on fastballs in the heart. He managed to keep his wOBA relatively high, but it seems like there was at least a little bit of luck involved. Next, when we focus in on in-zone fastballs when Stanton was behind in the count, you can see a precipitous drop from previous seasons. Like any great hitter, he would make pitchers pay for mistakes in the heart of the plate even when he was behind in the count, but that wasn’t the case last year. And while he is naturally a guess hitter, he seemed to rely too heavily on those guesses, and it resulted in many poor at-bats. A hitter of this caliber missing fastballs in the heart of the zone this much when behind in the count is a tell-tale sign that something is wrong. Those are the types of things you do when your body feels different and you can’t get to pitches you’ve always crushed.

To understand what I’m talking about, let’s run through a sequence where Stanton just looked off. This at-bat is from mid-July, after he suffered a right calf strain in late May and right around the time when he began missing time due to his left ankle. He started 2–0 on two fastballs out of the zone, then got three straight in the heart of the plate:

Pitch 3 (2–0 count)

Pitch 4 (2–1 count)

Pitch 5 (2–2 count)

This is a perfect in-game example of him letting fastball mistakes go by. One of the reasons Stanton has been such an incredible hitter for so long is that he creates his bat speed with minimal movement; his swing is shockingly quiet for somebody so large. On his two swings in advantage counts, his feet are dancing, especially in the first. He has a natural scissor kick from a closed stride, but it looks like he is losing grip on the ground before his swing gets going. Every hitter guesses or cheats at some point in an at-bat, but if they’re wrong, they can usually fight off a center-cut pitch with two strikes. Despite another fastball in the heart of the plate, Stanton couldn’t get a swing off. When your lower half isn’t properly connected to the ground, it can be difficult to rotate! As he took the pitch down the plate, you can see him enter extreme ankle eversion (ankle collapses inwards). Stand up and try to take a swing like that. Not so comfortable, right?

To illustrate that point further, here are a few swings from earlier in the season when Stanton’s feet are near neutral through the entire swing.

May 12

May 16

May 21

Each of these swings resulted in batted balls with exit velocities over 114 mph, a typical range for Stanton. But more importantly, his movements were quiet from his knees down. Relative to the swings against Cincinnati, there is no exaggeration of movement in any one part of his lower legs. In his home run swing against Dylan Cease, he uses his typical toe tap on his front foot and subtle scissor kick in the back foot to stay closed. There is no back foot slide like in July. These are fully healthy swings where Stanton maintains his connection to the ground from the beginning of rotation through contact.

Unfortunately for him, the compensations he showed in July only got worse through the end of the year.

August 29

September 24

October 1

From August on, Stanton was healthy enough to be on the field as other Yankees hitters faced injuries of their own, but he was clearly not close to 100%. These three swings can either be tied to his injured left ankle being unable to stay connected to the ground, or to his back foot not being strong enough to compensate for the energy leakage in his lead foot/ankle. In the first swing, his back leg slides way out because it’s attempting to do all the work for his body. The second swing is weeks later; he made an adjustment but still leaked into the same early ankle eversion in his back leg that we saw in July. It’s not impossible to hit like this, but when you’re struggling with stabilization, it’s not ideal.

His swing in early August is the most extreme example of how early ankle eversion can impact your lower half. It caused him to lose his back leg entirely, along with his posture. Those movements cut off his swing path, leading to his barrel being unable to cover the outer half. If you go back to Stanton’s swings from earlier in the year, you can see the best ones all come with athletic, straight posture. He’s a big dude, and to have success, he needs a stable base to control his body. This is obvious for any athlete, but as players age and lose a little bit of baseball skill, health and body control become more and more important. I’m not necessarily saying Stanton is losing skill; his first two months show that he seems to be okay. But he might be entering a stage of his career where he has less room for error and injuries like this compromise his skills and expose the biggest hole in his profile: swing and miss. I’m sure Stanton will be conscious of this heading into 2023.

Injuries have plagued Stanton for a while now, but as he heads into his mid-30s, health is more important than it’s ever been. His swing needs to stay quiet to make the most of his outlier strength. None of these injuries were major long-term concerns, but they were enough to compromise his swing and performance. Assuming he enters 2023 fully recovered from these issues, there is no question in my mind he still has the skills to deliver a 130–140 wRC+ season each year. But he will need to be conscious of how any injury impacts his swing as he enters the latter half of his career.


Sal Bando (1944-2023) and a Missed Date for Cooperstown

Darryl Norenberg-USA TODAY Sports

Third basemen have been underrepresented within the Hall of Fame since the institution’s inception, but one of the greats finally gained entry last week, when the BBWAA elected Scott Rolen in his sixth year of eligibility. Four days before the Hall called Rolen’s name, the baseball world lost another great third baseman when Sal Bando died at the age of 78 due to cancer. With better luck and timing, Bando might have been enshrined as well, with his passing felt far beyond Oakland and Milwaukee, the two cities where he spent his 16-year major league career.

Plenty of onlookers and even some voters had a hard time wrapping their heads around the election of Rolen, a great two-way third baseman whose all-around excellence — power, patience, elite defense, good baserunning — and stardom for two Cardinals pennant winners (one a champion) somehow wasn’t enough for those who expected him to measure up to Mike Schmidt, his predecessor in Philadelphia. Or Chipper Jones, his longer-lasting contemporary. Or… Don Mattingly or even Mark Grace because, uh, reasons. To them the notion of Bando as a Hall of Famer might seem even more unthinkable, but then they’d merely have a lot in common with the crusty scribes of four or five decades ago who helped to give Hall voting its bad name.

Bando spent 16 years in the majors (1966-81) with the A’s and Brewers, making four All-Star teams while most notably serving as the team captain and regular third baseman for an Oakland powerhouse that won five straight AL West titles from 1971-75 and three straight World Series from ’72 to ’74. An intense competitor with a high baseball IQ and a quiet lead-by-example style, he didn’t have quite the popularity or flair of teammates Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, or Vida Blue, but within the green-and-gold’s three-ring circus, he had those stars’ respect. “Sal Bando was the godfather. Capo di capo. Boss of all bosses on the Oakland A’s,” wrote Jackson in his 1984 autobiography. “We all had our roles, we all contributed, but Sal was the leader and everyone knew it.” Read the rest of this entry »


Sliding Headfirst: Jaime Barría and the First-Pitch Slider

Jaime Barria
Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports

Since early in our history, FanGraphs has been tracking pitch type linear weights, or pitch values organized by pitch type, based on both Baseball Info Solutions and PITCHf/x pitch type data. While metrics like wRAA and wRC+ look at run generation through the outcomes of plate appearances, the idea behind pitch values is to take a more granular look. The outcome of each pitch changes the run expectancy of any plate appearance, and pitch value is a method for quantifying the overall impact of all of a player’s pitches, not just the pitches that end plate appearances, as most metrics do. In the form of pitch-type linear weights, we use these pitch values to evaluate the performance of pitchers’ specific pitch types — or hitters’ ability to hit them — either on an absolute basis with stats like wFB (runs above average on all fastballs) or on a per-pitch basis with stats like wFB/C (runs above average per 100 fastballs).

Pitch values can also be a useful way to evaluate how pitchers (or hitters, for that matter) have fared in specific counts. Executing pitches in particular situations to get ahead in counts is a crucial part of a pitcher’s approach, and at times, it feels like we narratively underestimate the impact that the outcome of an early-count pitch can have on the rest of a plate appearance. In 2022, firing a first-pitch strike was enough to drop an opposing hitters’ wRC+ from the normalized average of 100 to 68; missing on the first pitch gave hitters enough of an advantage to lead to a mark of 130, just about in line with recent years. That’s roughly the difference between Kyles Tucker and Isbel.

2022 MLB wRC+ Through Each Count
Count 0 Strikes 1 Strike 2 Strikes
0 Balls 100 68 22
1 Ball 130 90 38
2 Balls 179 130 68
3 Balls 265 212 144

My colleague Ben Clemens has written on the strange historical practice of pitchers grooving fastballs right down the middle to start plate appearances and the perhaps even stranger practice of hitters letting them get away with that. But those practices are fading away, Ben writes, and in an analytical era in which teams are looking for every advantage, the first pitch is being recognized for what it is: a frontier of pitch value opportunity, a first chance to lower the expected scoring outcome of the plate appearance.

In 2022, the strongest performer overall on first pitches was none other than Angels reliever Jaime Barría, who finished with a summed run value of -10.1 on the opening offering, nearly two runs better than any other pitcher despite facing just 316 hitters. On a per-pitch basis, Barría’s performance was even more exceptional: his -.032 runs per first pitch were nearly twice that of any other pitcher with as many as 300 batters faced. It’s worth mentioning that there are limits to what we can glean from this data; around 300 pitches is a relatively modest sample size, and Piper Slowinski warns us that pitch value is more effective as a descriptive stat than a predictive one. Barría is a true outlier here, but as we indulge in taking a look at what was new in his approach, we should do so without assuming he’ll be able to reproduce these numbers in the future. Read the rest of this entry »


Hunter Brown Is Framber Valdez in a Justin Verlander-Shaped Container

James A. Pittman-USA TODAY Sports

Sportswriters are a miserable bunch. We slog through box scores and transcripts of quotes from practice and write about games that will be forgotten in hours. Then Hunter Brown falls out of the sky.

The Astros’ new starting pitcher not only has a windup like Justin Verlander’s, he grew up outside of Detroit and idolized Verlander as a kid! Can you believe it? That’s a human interest story fit to make J. Jonah Jameson spit out his stogie and forget all about those pictures of Spider-Man.

Even their repertoires look similar: An upper-90s four-seamer thrown about half the time, accompanied by a slider and a curveball. It’s the meat-and-two-sides combo you’ll find at most barbecue joints. There are differences, of course. Verlander throws his slider more than his curve, while Brown is the opposite. Brown also throws everything harder than Verlander does; his secondaries clock in about 6 mph faster than the three-time Cy Young winner’s.

Regardless, people look at Brown and say the baseball equivalent of “he has his mother’s eyes.” So why does Brown perform more like Framber Valdez? Read the rest of this entry »


Vinnie Pasquantino Talks Hitting

Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports

Vinnie Pasquantino is fast developing a reputation as a media-friendly player who can be counted on to provide fun quips on a variety subjects, both in print and on podcasts. Entertaining and engaging, the 25-year-old first baseman is already a fan favorite in Kansas City despite having not debuted until midway through the 2022 season. And he can swing the bat, too. The 2019 11th-round pick out of Old Dominion University began his big league career by slashing a robust .295/.383/.450 with a 137 wRC+ and 10 home runs in 298 plate appearances. Our lead prospect analyst is among those who weren’t surprised. Addressing his left-handed stroke last May, Eric Longenhagen wrote that “There are missile defense systems with less precise tracking ability than Pasquantino, who… is on time with remarkable consistency.”

Pasquantino talked hitting a few months into his rookie campaign with the Royals.

———

David Laurila: What do you know about hitting now that you didn’t know when you entered pro ball?

Vinnie Pasquantino: “More of the advanced stuff. Looking at data. I was never really familiar with data on pitches before — what vert means, what horizontal spin means, what attack angle means. Things that guys would talk about, like, ‘This guy throws a heavy ball’ or ‘It’s a firm 90.’ Now I have a better understanding of what that all means. That’s probably the biggest thing, just understanding all the data we’re given and how to use it on the field.” Read the rest of this entry »


Effectively Wild Episode 1963: Was the Greink There?

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley issue a sexiness-comment correction and banter about Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s MLB: The Show cover-model credentials, the 2023 Opening Day schedule, more ways in which baseball is and isn’t different from other sports (14:35), Chad Green’s convoluted contract (31:35), and their appreciation of Zack Greinke. Then (43:49) Ben chats with former All-Star Shawn Green about his cameo in 2003 sci-fi film The Core and his dominant stats against fellow The Core cameo-maker Mike Hampton, followed by a conversation (56:55) between Ben and The Athletic features writer Jayson Jenks about Jenks’s three oral histories of Greinke’s career, the best Greinke stories, Greinke’s singular skills, personality, and reputation, Greinke’s future in the game, and more. Finally, Ben and Meg conclude with a Past Blast from 1963 (1:36:31), plus a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: Sleater-Kinney, “Male Model
Audio interstitial: Fruit Bats, “My Unusual Friend
Audio outro: TUNS, “Keeping Options Open

Link to Correa tweet
Link to fake Jazz tweet
Link to Chisholm cover reveal
Link to cover athlete analysis
Link to Jazz on his cover spot
Link to Jazz on last year’s game
Link to 2023 schedule announcement
Link to fraternization rule video
Link to Ben on baseball failure
Link to baseball exceptionalism wiki
Link to FG post on Green
Link to MLBTR on Green
Link to Green options flow chart
Link to The Core Stat Blast episode
Link to The Core wiki
Link to story on the real core
Link to The Core baseball scene
Link to Green vs. Hampton H2H
Link to 2004 Green vs. Hampton story
Link to lopsided batter-pitcher matchups
Link to ’99–’02 top position players
Link to Randall Munroe on the shuttle
Link to Green vs. pitchers
Link to Greinke vs. hitters
Link to Green vs. Greinke H2H
Link to MLB 2004 wiki
Link to Green’s book
Link to Jay on Greinke re-signing
Link to story on Greinke’s cutter
Link to above-average low-K%+ SP
Link to 2022 SP by K%+
Link to Posnanski on Greinke
Link to first Greinke oral history
Link to second Greinke oral history
Link to third Greinke oral history
Link to fourth Greinke oral history
Link to 2019 thread of Greinke stories
Link to Greinke calling his own signs
Link to Greinke at game in stands
Link to list of best-hitting pitchers
Link to Jayson’s author archive
Link to 1963 story source
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to ESPN on the tennis exhibition
Link to “Battle of Surfaces” video
Link to tennis serve clock story
Link to 2022 RP WAR leaders
Link to John Adams obit
Link to Adams Guardians induction
Link to Hilda Award
Link to Baseball Reliquary episode
Link to turf definition
Link to artificial turf wiki
Link to “Was the Grink There?” tweet

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Chad Green Signs Convoluted Deal With Toronto

Chad Green
Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

The Blue Jays have been busy this offseason, acquiring Daulton Varsho, Chris Bassitt, and Erik Swanson. Now, they’ve added right-handed reliever Chad Green to the mix, one of the bigger names still on the market. While a full-strength Green is probably the best reliever in this free-agent class who didn’t sign a nine-figure extension to jumpstart the offseason, he was shut down after just 15 innings in 2022 and underwent Tommy John surgery in a contract year. Because his rehab will sideline him for the majority of the upcoming season, he was relegated to 41st on our Top 50 free agent list, with a median crowdsourced projection of just one year and $5 million. Our readers came pretty close on the AAV, but the number of years on his deal is still to be determined.

Let’s go over the complex details of this contract. Green will earn $2.25 million in 2023. At the conclusion of the season, the Blue Jays can pick up a three-year option that will keep him in Toronto through the end of 2026, paying out $9 million per season. Should they decline this team option, he has the option to tack on one more year to the deal worth $6.25 million, but if he’s not interested, the Jays get the chance to exercise yet another team option, this one for just two years and $21 million with some escalators based on playing time. In short, if the Blue Jays are satisfied with Green’s arm health, he could be wearing blue for four years, but if they’re not, he could test free agency again as soon as this November. He can guarantee himself $8.5 million over the next two seasons, provided he accepts the player option for 2024. The nested levels of team and player options are reminiscent of Julio Rodríguez’s mega-extension signed last August (although with fewer years and fewer zeroes on the total value), which Dan Szymborski dubbed “the most expensive Choose Your Own Adventure book ever.” Green’s deal doesn’t warrant that distinction, but it’s still one of the more complicated baseball contracts in recent memory.

Green debuted in the majors in 2016 as a starter with the Yankees, demonstrating his excellent strikeout stuff but surrendering 2.4 home runs per nine. ERA estimators like SIERA and xFIP correctly forecasted that the flyball luck would start going his way, but these improvements came alongside a change in role. The next season, he was moved to the bullpen, where he lowered his home run rate to acceptable levels and improved upon his elite strikeout rate, becoming possibly the best multi-inning reliever in the years since. That’s a tough claim to make, but I think I can defend it. To be a multi-inning weapon, you (obviously) have to pitch multiple innings per appearance, and in the past six seasons, no reliever has done that more than Green. Read the rest of this entry »


His Shoulder Sound, Brocke Burke Was a Beast Out of the Texas Bullpen

Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

Brock Burke broke out in 2022. Working out of the Texas Rangers bullpen, the 26-year-old southpaw logged a 1.97 ERA over 52 appearances, with 90 strikeouts and just 63 hits allowed in 82-and-a-third innings. Equally effective against lefties and righties, he held the former to a .192 BA and a .635 OPS, the latter to a .218 BA and a .629 OPS. Used most often in the sixth and seventh innings, Burke was credited with wins in seven of his 12 decisions.

Burke went into last season having made just six big league appearances, all in 2019 as a starter, with a balky shoulder the culprit. That he came back strong after returning to full health is an understatement. Along with the aforementioned numbers, Burke logged a stand-up-and-take-notice 27.4% strikeout rate.

First interviewed here at FanGraphs in 2017 when he was a 20-year-old Tampa Bay Rays prospect pitching in the Midwest League, Burke will head into the 2023 with a role that has yet to be determined. The Rangers are reportedly considering using him as a starter, while some have speculated that he could be the club’s closer. Regardless of how he is utilized, one thing is certain: When healthy, Burke has proven to be a very good pitcher. Read the rest of this entry »


2023 SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards: Voting Now Open!

2023 SABR Analytics Conference

Here’s your chance to vote for the 2023 SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards winners.

The SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards will recognize baseball researchers who have completed the best work of original analysis or commentary during the preceding calendar year. Nominations were solicited by representatives from SABR, Baseball Prospectus, FanGraphs, the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America, and Sports Info Solutions.

To read any of the finalists, click on the link below. Scroll down to cast your vote.

Contemporary Baseball Analysis

Contemporary Baseball Commentary

Historical Baseball Analysis/Commentary

John Dewan Defensive Analytics Award

 

Voting will be open through 11:59 p.m. MST on Friday, February 10, 2023.

Create your own user feedback survey

Mobile or Safari users, click here to access the survey

Results will be announced and presented at the SABR Analytics Conference, March 10-12, 2023, in Phoenix, Arizona. Learn more or register for the conference at SABR.org/analytics.