Everton-Bournemouth stands out among today’s Premier League matchups, as the former will secure a return to England’s elite division with a win (they could also survive with a loss or a draw, but only if both Leeds and Leicester City likewise fail to win). Everton FC, which is located in Liverpool, was last relegated below the top flight in 1951.

As most EPL fans are aware, Everton’s home grounds, Goodison Park, are located less than a mile from Anfield, the historic home of Liverpool FC. They also know that the principal owner of Everton’s longtime arch rival is John Henry, whose Fenway Sports Group purchased the more-ballyhooed of the two clubs in 2010.

According to a new book by Bruce Schoenfeld, the acquisition happened only after initial reluctance from FSG’s ultimate decision-maker. As chronicled in Game of Edges: The Analytics Revolution and the Future of Professional Sports, Henry proclaimed the following during a business meeting held to assess the possible purchase:

“But I don’t want to own a soccer team.” Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Ben’s prediction concerning the Padres’ and Rangers’ rest-of-season performance with runners in scoring position, then (14:08) answer listener emails about the ultimate Quadruple-A player, leaving runners on base for the opposing team, immaculate-inning edge cases, tanking for Shohei Ohtani, setting up a lifelong Google Alert for a player, the 2020 season’s impact on Hall of Fame cases, and Barry Bonds with an extra-short bat, followed by (1:12:43) Stat Blasts about the frequency of in-game position switches and the most players on a team who had previously played on the same former team, plus (1:40:06) a Past Blast from 2012 and a few follow-ups.

Audio intro: Tom Rhoads, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Dave Armstrong and Mike Murray, “Effectively Wild Theme”

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There’s a growing stereotype that even the most unheralded reliever coming off the shuttle from Triple-A can pump triple digits and throw wipeout secondary stuff out of nowhere. We’ve seen plenty of examples of this phenomenon in the pitch data era, from the Rays developing Jason Adam into a high-leverage ace to Yennier Cano improving his ERA from 11.50 to 0.35. Baltimore and Tampa Bay are known for turning people off the street into elite relievers, but nearly every team is light years ahead of where the industry was just a few years ago. Of course, not every pitcher can have a 200 ERA+, but I wanted to see just how many replacement-caliber relievers really are the real deal. Let’s take a look at a nondescript game from earlier this week and find out.

On Tuesday, the Angels and Red Sox faced off. The two teams had played a rather close game through the end of seven innings. Boston starter Brayan Bello surrendered just two solo shots in the longest start of his young career, while his opponent, Griffin Canning, one-upped him with seven shutout frames. As the bullpens came in, the Sox still had a fighting chance to win… at least until Mike Trout clubbed a two-run homer off Joely Rodríguez, who would then allow two more runners to reach base. While just a one-run swing would make it a save situation, the leverage index sat at a measly 0.07. At this point, both teams went to the back of their bullpens, with the Sox summoning Justin Garza and the Angels letting Jacob Webb complete the game. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m going to say this bluntly because it’s something that most should agree with: Harrison Bader’s defense in center field is special. Unfortunately for Bader and baseball fans, he has never totaled above 430 plate appearances in a single season, so we’ve never had the privilege to see him run around the outfield for a traditional full season and rack up defensive value. But even with this limitation, he’s still at or near the top of just about every aggregated defensive metric leaderboard for the last few seasons. If you watch him roam the outfield — and I mean really watch him — you realize that this is a player who does everything correctly out there and has an unflappable baseball IQ. If you could write a script on how to be the perfect outfielder, all you would need to say is “be Bader.”

Let’s start by addressing where Bader ranks next to his peers this season in terms of defensive metrics. I’m only going to focus on Outs Above Average (OAA) for this piece. Defensive metrics are a great starting point to a conversation like this, but they are a complement to video analysis that will show us the details of a player’s fundamentals and decision making.

Here are the leading outfielders in terms of OAA this season:

One of these is not like the others! Given that OAA is a counting stat, a player with at least 16 fewer games played (usually more) should not be on this list, but Bader only trails Robert this season in OAA, and that is mainly due to his Success Rate Added. That gives some more insight into how valuable he has been in his limited sample this year. Read the rest of this entry »

By and large, the new rule set for this season has led to more exciting baseball. Stolen bases are more common than they’ve been at any point this century. The average time of game is down more than half an hour from its peak in 2021, and lower than it’s been in almost 40 years. There’s less dead time between pitches and fewer annoying delays.

But as much as these rules represent a considered effort to goose the entertainment value of the sport, there wasn’t a mechanism to preserve baseball’s most exciting play: the triple. So concurrent with a rise in stolen bases, we’re down to 0.12 triples per team per game. According to the historical data on Baseball Reference, that’s an all-time low:

Read the rest of this entry »

It may not have ended the slump he’s fallen into since mid-April, but Trea Turner picked a very good time to snap out of a 2-for-20 skid that began last weekend. On Wednesday afternoon against the Diamondbacks, the Phillies were trailing, 5–3, and down to their final out, in danger not only of being swept in the three-game series but also of losing for the eighth time in 10 games. Then José Ruiz hung a curveball that Turner didn’t miss, pounding it for a game-tying two-run homer. The Phillies won in 10 innings, but whether this the start of a turnaround for Turner — who, like Manny Machado, is off to a rough start on his new $300 million contract — remains to be seen.

The homer was Turner’s fifth of the year and his first since May 6. Even with it and Thursday’s subsequent 0-for-5 against the Braves, his offensive numbers look a whole lot more like what the Phillies got from their shortstops (Didi Gregorius, Bryson Stott, Johan Camargo, and Edmundo Sosa) last year than what Turner did with the Dodgers:

Turner has been frank about his struggles. After Monday’s loss to the Diamondbacks, he told reporters, “I’m honest with myself, I’ve sucked.” While that may be overstating the case a bit, he hasn’t offered anything close to his superstar-level play of the past two seasons, and only through respectable (if small sample) defensive metrics at shortstop (1.6 UZR, 1 OAA, -2 DRS) is he above replacement level. Using our UZR/OAA inputs, his 0.6 WAR prorates to 2.0 over a full season — more or less average — but using DRS, his 0.3 bWAR prorates to just 1.0 WAR, or decidedly below average. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to another installment of my weekly look at the plays and players that caught my eye. As usual, thanks go to Zach Lowe, who pioneered the concept for ESPN and is one of my favorite sports columnists. This week’s edition features fakes galore, a fun underdog story, outfield defense both good and bad, and a heaping helping of the Braves, Dodgers, and Rays. Let’s get to it.

1. Willy Adames, Dekemaster General
Baseball players love to pull off fun and unusual plays. You can see it in their faces when something unique happens. As far as I can tell from my last few years of baseball viewing, there’s no one this is more true of than Willy Adames. He’s a corner case waiting to happen, and I can’t get enough of it.

Here’s an example from recent memory: Adames is always ready to deceive the runner at second base after a steal. Tommy Edman stole second base against the Brewers earlier this month, getting such a clean jump off of Corbin Burnes that the catcher had no chance to nab him:

That’s a great play by Adames just to reel in the throw, which could easily have flown into center field. It wasn’t a particularly impactful time to keep Edman from reaching third base, what with two outs in the inning and all, but every 90 feet helps. But after making that spectacular play, Adames tried to make an even more spectacular one. He started gesturing towards the outfielder as if to say he’d lost the ball:

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems like all of our coverage of the 2023 Diamondbacks here at FanGraphs has focused on the pitching, and it’s not hard to see why. Zac Gallen has looked phenomenal (at times historically so), Madison Bumgarner was abominable (eventually too abominable to roster), and the D-backs have given some intriguing young arms the chance to prove their worth in the big league rotation.

Yet all that being so, the real story of the 2023 Diamondbacks has been the offense. They lead the National League in hitting and rank third with 257 runs scored. They’re fourth in OBP, fourth in slugging percentage, and fifth in wRC+. By and large, the pitching staff has performed as expected – Gallen good, MadBum bad, everyone else somewhere in between – but the offense has been more potent than anyone could have envisioned.

It’s been a team effort in Arizona; among the nine Diamondbacks hitters with at least 100 PA, seven have been above-average at the plate. Corbin Carroll is off to the races. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. has taken a massive step forward. Ketel Marte and Christian Walker have been predictably solid, while Gabriel Moreno and Pavin Smith are holding their own. Leading the way, however, has been none other than Geraldo Perdomo, who is pacing the club in OBP, wRC+, and WAR. What? Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the St. Louis Cardinals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

On Wednesday night, an eight-run seventh-inning outburst against the Yankees catalyzed another Orioles win, bringing their record to 32–17, second best in the majors. Among the highlights in the frame: Adam Frazier brought home three with a shot off the foul pole, and Gunnar Henderson plated two with a pinch-hit double. Understandably lost in the scrum was the first hit in the rally, a 109.6 mph scorcher off the bat of Austin Hays that snuck through the infield.

With two hits in four at-bats Wednesday, Hays brought his season slash up to .308/.351/.484 and his wRC+ to 131. The excitement that has come along with the Baby Birds — namely Henderson, Adley Rutschman, and Grayson Rodriguez — has overshadowed what looks to be a breakout season for the left fielder despite his own former prospect status. It’s easy to forget that back in 2017, Hays homered 32 times as a 21-year-old between High-A and Double-A, earning a call-up without a single Triple-A appearance. He was the first 2016 draftee to make the majors. Read the rest of this entry »