Mark Gubicza was a good starting pitcher. Making all but two of his 384 big-league appearances with the Kansas City Royals, the big right-hander logged 132 wins to go with a 3.96 ERA, 42 complete games, and 16 shutouts. His best season came in 1988 when he went 20-8 with a 2.70 ERA and finished third in A.L. Cy Young balloting.

Gubicza also had two saves, both of them in 1993. That was the year he gained a true appreciation for how challenging it is to protect a late-inning lead for a teammate. How he came work out of the bullpen — something he did sparingly outside of that one season — was a matter of circumstance.

“We didn’t have a bridge to get from our starters to Jeff Montgomery,” explained Gubicza, who now serves as a TV analyst for the Angels. “The year before, my shoulder was a little sketchy, so [manager] Hal McRae asked me if I could be the bridge. At first I was hesitant, because I liked starting. But I was building back my arm strength, so I said, ‘You know what? I’ll do whatever it takes to win games. I’ll be that bridge to get to Jeff Montgomery.”

The transition was initially bumpy. Gubicza’s heart would start racing when the bullpen phone rang, and once he began warming, he would be throwing as hard as he could. Moreover, while adrenaline was telling him that he was ready, his stuff wasn’t ready. Much for those reasons, he took his lumps before figuring out what worked for him in the unfamiliar role. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the podcast’s semi-official new nickname for Yandy Díaz, what Mookie Betts playing shortstop says about the Dodgers, and Andrew McCutchen’s hot start, then (15:29) answer emails about the Reds’ many mascots, why we stop at “Quadruple-A,” how good today’s 26th men would be if they traveled back in time, sticky stuff on a tacky ball, and whether MLB would ever privatize publicly accessible Statcast data, followed (47:48) by a Stat Blast about Ross Stripling and the ultimate swingmen, the longest identical sequences of team wins and losses, and whether working the count to get pitchers out of games is still all it’s cracked up to be, plus a recap (1:23:03) of the first time the A’s played MLB games in Las Vegas and a Past Blast (1:30:27) from 1997.

Audio intro: Benny and the Jeffs, “Effectively Wild”
Audio outro: Jacket Thor, “My Patron Saint”

Link to FG post on Mookie
Link to Mookie’s play at short
Link to Eric Stephen on Mookie
Link to Smyly/Gomes play
Link to MLB mascots wiki
Link to Reds mascots page
Link to Ben on Triple-A strength
Link to Clay D. on league strength
Link to Ben on caliber of play
Link to MLBTR on pre-tacked balls
Link to Topps NOW cards
Link to Seinfeld clip
Link to Stripling on EW
Link to MLBTR on Stripling
Link to Slusser tweet about Stripling
Link to swingmen GS/GR ratio
Link to Ryan Nelson on Twitter
Link to travelling salesman problem
Link to Graham’s tweet
Link to Turner’s quotes
Link to Tango on 3-2 counts
Link to article on pitch counts/TTOP
Link to WP when SP doesn’t go 5
Link to 2018 opener article
Link to 1996 articles on A’s in Vegas
Link to Cashman Field wiki
Link to 1997 Past Blast source
Link to NYT on radical realignment
Link to Tribune on radical realignment
Link to Grant on radical realignment
Link to B-Ref on radical realignment
Link to Hendriks announcement

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Depending on your perspective, it’s a very fun time to be a catcher. Admittedly, I may be imparting some personal bias here since my favorite part of catching was always when a runner took off for second base. It’s the one time in a game when the catcher is in the spotlight. Most of your time as a backstop consists of serving your pitcher in whatever way they need, but with the increase in stolen base attempts this year, catchers have consistently found themselves with golden opportunities to show off their throwing skills. Because of this, arm strength and pop time are as important as they’ve been in the last few decades, and some catchers have been early standouts when it comes to controlling the running game.

The importance of throwing out runners, or even limiting attempts, has made a comeback. As we progress through the next few months, we’ll gain a more precise understanding of just how valuable this skill can be in this stolen base environment, but the early season trends indicate that if you can throw out runners at a good rate, you’ll be one of the most valuable defensive players in the league. And there are a few catchers who have stood apart from the rest of the field when it comes to this being a significant part of their overall value so far. I’m going to highlight two of them in this piece. The first is Gabriel Moreno.

Through the first few weeks of play, no player has produced more defensive value than the young catcher in Arizona and much of that is due to his success throwing out runners. In Moreno’s 2022 prospect report, Eric Longenhagen reported that the catcher sat in the 1.95-1.98 pop time range while in the Arizona Fall League. That would have been slightly above the big league average. However, so far this season, he has been excellent, averaging 1.90 seconds according to Baseball Savant. The combination of his pop time and five caught stealing in eight attempts (63%) has provided the D-backs with plenty of fun, but also with the reassurance that their catcher can still provide value despite struggling offensively (he has posted a meager 62 wRC+ in 52 plate appearances). Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not often that a 33-year old player still owed $34 million over two years is designated for assignment, but after a three-inning, seven run performance against the Cardinals on Wednesday that ballooned his ERA to 10.26, the Diamondbacks decided to cut bait on Madison Bumgarner. Things certainly didn’t go the way the D-Backs anticipated after inking him to a five-year, $85 million deal, as he closed out his Arizona tenure with a 5.23 ERA, 5.18 FIP, and 1 WAR in 363 innings.

As a Diamondback, Bumgarner seemed like a shell of his former self, the former Giants ace who was the hero of three separate playoff runs. His numbers went from good to terrible almost overnight, but the writing was on the wall long before he signed with Arizona. After a successful 2016 campaign that ended in his second top-five Cy Young finish, he missed about half of ’17 and ’18 with injuries, one of which was sustained in a dirt bike crash. While his surface-level results in those two seasons held steady with his career norms, his FIP climbed by nearly a full run as he lost much of the strikeout potency that made him so dominant in years past. His fastball, which once sat around 93 mph, lost two ticks and much of its whiff capabilities. The slider/cutter hybrid that he threw with near-equal frequency to the heater also started getting hit harder; batters had an xSLG nearing .500 versus both offerings in his final season as a Giant.

Despite these warning flags, the Diamondbacks still handed him a big contract before the 2020 season, where his performance began to tank. His strikeout rates continued to fall, and the good luck he experienced later in his Giants tenure faded away. It doesn’t help that Bumgarner has been characterized as unwilling to make adjustments even with diminished stuff, instead sticking with his old, clearly ineffective gameplan. In his late-30s, Charlie Morton nearly tripled his curveball usage compared to his early Pittsburgh days and had the best years of his career. Justin Verlander stopped throwing changeups with the Astros and returned to Cy Young form after some middling seasons; his teammate Gerrit Cole started elevating his fastball more, setting strikeout records in the process. Bumgarner, though, stuck with his fastball/cutter diet, despite the fact that in 2022, his four-seamer was the second-worst pitch in baseball, according to Statcast. As hitters adapted to crush his weakened stuff, Bumgarner couldn’t or wouldn’t adapt back, leading to an unceremonious end to his time on the Diamondbacks. Read the rest of this entry »

The Pirates are off to a surprisingly hot 13–7 start, tied for the fifth-best record in the majors, and they have a burgeoning offense to thank. At the close of play on Thursday, after scoring 37 runs over a four-game stretch, they rank second in the National League with 103 runs scored, are tied for fourth in the majors with 27 home runs, and are third with a .446 team slugging percentage and eighth with a .339 wOBA. They’ve managed to limit strikeouts — they’re seventh among major league teams with a 20.6% strikeout rate – and have improved their walk rate by two percentage points since last year. Pirates pitching has handled their side of business well enough — their 12th-ranked 4.03 ERA represents a significant improvement from 2022 but looks a little cleaner than their 17th-ranked ​​4.30 FIP and 22nd-ranked 4.55 xFIP — but the real bright light has been that offense.

We’re already getting to the appropriate time in this piece to repeat FanGraphs’ April refrain: it’s early. But when looking for answers this early in the season, I like to follow a general rule of thumb: the more granular the data, the better. As Russell Carleton wrote in this 2011 piece, “The way to increase reliability of a measure is to have more observations in the data set.” This early in the season, we can often learn more reliably from statistics that are based on every pitch a hitter sees or every swing he takes — something like swing rate or contact rate — than metrics with at-bats or plate appearances in the denominator. This makes plate discipline and pitch selection a good area to explore looking for answers in April.

In the case of the Pirates, improved pitch selection has been a great triumph so far this year — and it’s not that they’re necessarily being more patient, but more that they’re making better decisions. The team is swinging at 45.5% of offerings this year, down just a tenth of a point from last year, but far more of those swings are targeting pitches in the zone. Pittsburgh ranks second in the majors with a 27.9% chase percentage, an improvement from 31.7% last year. After finishing dead last in 2022 in zone swing percentage at 65.3%, the Pirates are all the way up to sixth this season with a 69.3% rate. The improvements have been nearly universal, but even as their depth has been tested with injuries to Oneil Cruz and Ji-Man Choi, a few picky Pirates are leading the way. Read the rest of this entry »

On Thursday, the internet dealt with countless cases of “Is that really who I think it is?” as Twitter removed verification checkmarks for unpaid users. Yet when baseball fans did a double-take, it wasn’t because of a spam account that looked suspiciously like Jeff Passan or Ken Rosenthal. Instead, it was because of a shortstop who looked suspiciously like Mookie Betts.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts teased fans earlier this week, revealing that Betts could play shortstop on Wednesday. Instead, it was Luke Williams who took to the field at game time. Fans got their hopes up for Betts the following day, but once again, it was Williams on the lineup card. Indeed, it wasn’t until the seventh inning of yesterday’s ballgame that Roberts finally made good on his word; he pinch-hit for Williams with Betts, and Betts would stay in the game at shortstop. Williams may have earned the nickname Captain America for his performance with the US Olympic baseball team, but Betts was the superhero – or should I say super-utility player – everyone wanted to see. Read the rest of this entry »

Pablo López is off to a good start in his first season with the Twins. Acquired by Minnesota from Miami as the centerpiece of an offseason deal that sent defending American League batting champion Luis Arraez to the Marlins, the 27-year-old right-hander has a 1.73 ERA and a 2.70 FIP over 26 innings. Moreover, he’s fanned 33 while surrendering just 15 hits and issuing six walks.

Trading in his cutter for a sweeper has played a part in that success. López has thrown his new offering 82 times — all against same-sided hitters — over four starts, and only twice has the result been a base hit. His Whiff% on the pitch is an eye-opening 50%.

The repertoire tweak was made at the behest of López’s new team, but the idea of a sweeper preceded his arrival.

“I first got the concept at Driveline in the offseason,” explained López, who logged a 3.75 ERA in a career-high 180 innings last year with Miami. “But I was only there for a short visit, so I couldn’t really capitalize on the concept of it. Then, in spring training, it was brought up again. From there we sat down and worked on it.” Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to another installment of five things that caught my attention in baseball this week. Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but I got the idea from the estimable Zach Lowe, who writes a similar column about basketball every week that I absolutely love. Now that the sugar rush of home openers and new players is starting to wear off, we’re into the grind of the regular season.

But the grind of the regular season is awesome. There’s so much going on, all the time, that there’s always something worth paying attention to. It’s just a matter of keeping your eyes open – and watching an ungodly amount of baseball, of course, which is the best part of my job. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday, the Oakland Athletics revealed that they’ve taken a concrete step toward building a ballpark in Las Vegas. Well, not “concrete” in the literal sense, but the A’s have “signed a binding agreement to purchase” a place to put concrete, a 49-acre plot near Allegiant Stadium (home of the NFL’s Raiders) and the Las Vegas Strip. Pending approval of a “public-private partnership,” A’s president Dave Kaval told the San Francisco Chronicle, a stadium could be completed in time for Opening Day 2027.

There are still plenty of components to be juggled, but this is the biggest indication yet that the years-long effort to find a new home for the A’s in California is doomed to fail. Should the A’s relocate, they’ll become the first team to do so since the Montreal Expos moved to Washington in 2005, and the first team in the AL-NL era to move three times. Read the rest of this entry »