The Padres continue to sputter along, below .500 (27-32) and outside the playoff picture. While Juan Soto has heated up, Manny Machado has extended the slump that he was in before landing on the injured list with a fractured metacarpal, and Xander Bogaerts has underperformed while playing through a lingering wrist issue for the past month. As for Fernando Tatis Jr., he’s returned from a lost season that included a wrist fracture and an 80-game suspension for using a banned substance, and while he’s been one of the Padres’ most productive hitters, his performance has been uneven, well short of his superstar-level showings from 2019-21.

The circumstances surrounding Tatis’ left wrist fracture have yet to be clarified fully, in part because he could not communicate with the Padres during the lockout, but he’s believed to have suffered the injury during one of the multiple (!) motorcycle accidents he was involved in while in the Dominican Republic during the 2021-22 offseason. He apparently did not start feeling the effects of the injury until he began taking swings in mid-February in preparation for spring training, but only after the lockout ended did the team discover the injury. He underwent surgery to repair his scaphoid bone on March 16, and his recovery took longer than expected. Four games into his rehab stint, Major League Baseball announced that he had incurred an 80-game suspension for testing positive for Clostebol, an anabolic steroid prohibited under the league’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, a shock and disappointment given both his growing stature within the game and the tantalizing possibility of him joining a revamped Padres lineup.

Tatis’ suspension ran through the Padres’ final 48 regular season games, their 12-game postseason run (during which they reached the National League Championship Series after upsetting both the 101-win Mets and 111-win Dodgers), and their first 20 games of this season. When he took the field on April 20, in the Padres’ 21st game, he was 18 1/2 months removed from his last regular season major league game. That’s a substantial slice of time in a 24-year-old player’s life. Read the rest of this entry »

As a hitting mechanics nerd, there are a few players on my shortlist of guys who I would love to get in the cage with and talk about their process, development, and mindset in the batter’s box. J.D. Martinez is one of them. He’s established a reputation for himself as a cerebral hitter. It was a key reason for his breakout season in 2014, his rebound in 2021 after a rough shortened season in 2020, and now his resurgence in 2023. Despite an IL stint earlier this month for a back issue, Martinez has destroyed baseballs recently and pushed his wRC+ up to a 146 on the season. In May alone, he posted a 172 wRC+ and .392 ISO.

His power stroke is back after working on recovering it with Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc throughout spring training and the opening month of the season. The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya spoke to Martinez and Van Scoyoc in early April about Martinez losing efficiency in one of the most important aspects of his swing: his hand row. Martinez pointed to a line of physical compensations in his swing as a result of an ankle injury from the 2018 World Series that he reaggravated down the stretch in 2021. When you’re as in tune with your mechanics and where your barrel is in space as Martinez is, these little aggravations can significantly impact the way you understand how your body is moving. Before jumping into some video showing how Martinez has changed since last year with Boston, let’s take a look at some batted ball and performance data that detail how much better he has been this season:

Read the rest of this entry »

With the calendar flipped to June, there’s a new team on top of these power rankings.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), their pitching (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by starter and reliever IP share), and their defense (RAA) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. I also add in a factor for “luck,” adjusting a team’s win percentage based on expected win-loss record. The result is a power ranking, which is then presented in tiers below.

The Rangers powered through a 5–1 week and won their fifth straight series by dropping 30 runs on the Mariners over the weekend. They have the best run differential in baseball and have set a new franchise mark for best record through the first 58 games of a season. Corey Seager and Marcus Semien, their two big acquisitions a year ago, are producing at elite levels again, and they’re supported by a lineup that has few holes in it. They’ve had all this success despite getting just six starts from Jacob deGrom, their big acquisition this offseason, thus far.

In a matchup of two of the best teams in the National League, the Braves wound up taking two of three from the Diamondbacks in Arizona in a dramatic weekend series full of twists and turns. That was a nice bounce-back after losing two of three to the A’s earlier in the week, giving Oakland its first series win of the season. While there are still plenty of questions about Atlanta’s pitching staff, their offense continues to power their success; Ronald Acuña Jr. is the current favorite to win the NL MVP, and Matt Olson, Austin Riley, and Sean Murphy are a fantastic supporting cast. Read the rest of this entry »

Back in mid-April, I took the opportunity to gawk at Luis Arraez’s hot start — he’d gone 24-for-51 in his first 15 games — under the assumption that he’d cool off and stop being so interesting fairly soon. Well, Arraez has cooled off, but not as much as you’d think. On Saturday, the Marlins second baseman went 5-for-5 with three doubles to break out of a slump: He’d gone 1-for-6 with one strikeout across the previous two games. Before that, he’d had multiple hits in his previous three games.

Sunday against Oakland, Arraez added two more hits to bring his seasonal batting line to .392/.445/.485. After that hellacious 15-game start to the season, Arraez has hit .362 in his cooldown period and has struck out just seven times in his past 40 games.

Nothing has really changed about Arraez as a hitter since the last time I wrote about him. He’s still making more contact than anyone else in baseball and spraying soft line drives around the diamond like Carlos Alcaraz in spikes. But over the past week, while Arraez was taping “kick me” signs to opposing pitchers’ backs, we passed two important milestones on the baseball calendar: Memorial Day and the start of the NCAA Tournament. That means we’re no longer in the fluky part of the season, and what you’re seeing might actually be real.

So let’s get down to it: Can Arraez hit .400? Read the rest of this entry »

Taj Bradley has had an up-and-down rookie season with the Rays, but only in terms of promotions and demotions. The 22-year-old right-hander has twice been optioned to Triple-A, and three times he’s been summoned back to the big leagues. He might be in Tampa Bay to stay. Over six starts comprising 30 innings, Bradley has logged a 3.62 ERA and a 2.82 FIP, with wins in three of five decisions. Moreover, he’s fanned 42 batters while issuing just five free passes.

The level of composure he’s displayed belies his age and inexperience. While many players performing on the big stage for the first time have a fast heartbeat, his has been borderline bradycardia. In a word, Bradley is chill.

“I’m not the kind of person to get too caught up in anything,” the 2018 fifth-round pick out of Stone Mountain, Georgia’s Redan High School told me on Friday. “If I were to meet a celebrity, or pitch in a big game, I wouldn’t be making too much of a moment of it. I always downplay things. I mean, you do get your nerves, but I don’t build it up. Someone might say, ‘Oh, you made your debut,’ or ‘Oh, you got a win against the Red Sox,’ but I just go about my day.”

Bradley’s debut, which came at home in a spot start against Boston on April 12, did elicit emotions. Being unflappable may be in his DNA, but it’s not as though he’s an unfeeling cyborg. Nearly two months later, the game remains a blur. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether Shohei Ohtani is throwing too many sweepers to opposite-handed hitters, the MLB debut of flamethrowing Ben Joyce, the extreme walk/strikeout stylings of George Kirby and Spencer Strider, the states of the Central divisions, the offense and defense of Ke’Bryan Hayes, the return of Jon Singleton, whether the pitch clock is responsible for this season’s uptick in attendance, and the taken-for-granted greatness of Mookie Betts, answer listener emails about baseball’s version of a hockey goon, players singing during the seventh-inning stretch, and whether it would make umpires more accurate to give them a PitchCom device, plus a Past Blast (1:18:33) from 2015.

Audio intro: Jonathan Crymes, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Andy Ellison, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Ohtani sweeper RV vs. RHB
Link to Ohtani sweeper RV vs. LHB
Link to sweeper leaderboard
Link to Ohtani pitch usage
Link to SP sweeper usage
Link to Ben C. on sweepers
Link to Ohtani sweeper HR vs. LHB
Link to Joyce’s debut
Link to Joyce pitch speeds
Link to story on Joyce’s record pitch
Link to Strider/Kirby spreadsheet
Link to Kirby command plot
Link to Kirby fun fact
Link to Strider fun fact
Link to Herbstreit Reds Twitter war
Link to Hayes’s defensive ratings
Link to MLBTR on Singleton
Link to annual attendance
Link to 2023 team attendance
Link to spring ratings story
Link to early-season ratings story
Link to Ben on the pitch clock
Link to Mookie gamer
Link to FG WAR leaderboard
Link to hockey enforcer wiki
Link to Brault EW episode
Link to Jeff on Brault
Link to Brault’s album
Link to Brault’s OF conversion
Link to Alberto singing
Link to EW emails database
Link to 2015 Past Blast source
Link to other 2015 source
Link to TORIIHTW book website
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Dan S. on pitcher zStats

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s 500th EW episode, the architectural concept of the “Thomasson,” a forthcoming HBO documentary about Barry Bonds, the rebound of Juan Soto, common misconceptions about WAR, the declines of Noah Syndergaard and Kris Bryant, the NL West, MLB broadcasting Padres games, an MLB-MLBPA ad deal, a rules update, Francisco Álvarez’s defense, the return of Jordan Walker, Shohei Ohtani’s bat grip, a slowdown in injuries, and a D-III team that wins with HBPs, plus a Past Blast from 2014 (1:32:52), player responses to the Dodgers’ Pride Night, and follow-ups.

Audio intro: Ian H., “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Guy Russo, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to Thomasson thread
Link to Thomasson wiki
Link to Thomasson at B-Ref Bullpen
Link to Thomasson podcast episode
Link to Bonds doc info
Link to A-Rod doc story
Link to A-Rod gum disease segment
Link to Trout/Griffey FB thread
Link to FG’s WAR explainer
Link to Syndergaard quote
Link to Syndergaard hypnosis story
Link to December Syndergaard story
Link to FG on Syndergaard’s 2022
Link to Rumpelstiltskin wiki
Link to MLBTR on Bryant
Link to Ben C. on MLB/DSG
Link to Sheehan on MLB/DSG
Link to Ginny Searle on MLB/DSG
Link to MLB-MLBPA partnership
Link to more info on partnership
Link to Ben C. on new rules
Link to Sheehan on new rules
Link to Jay on Álvarez
Link to MLBTR on Walker
Link to Ohtani tweet
Link to injuries tweet
Link to Jake on Misericordia
Link to 2014 Past Blast source
Link to other 2014 source
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to story about Pride Night
Link to story about player comments
Link to Buckley column
Link to “allies” lineup
Link to Abreu/Acton tweet
Link to hot mic video

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
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Offense is up this year. That’s partly the result of more home runs due to a baseball with less drag. It’s also due in part to the bevy of new rules; while the shift ban hasn’t quite returned us to the golden age of groundball singles, it has at least increased BABIP over recent years, and the bigger bases and pickoff rules have revamped the running game.

However, one major rule change with an as-of-yet undetermined impact on offense remains: the pitch clock. As my colleague Ben Clemens pointed out in the article on rule changes linked above, the impact of clock violations has been minimal. While the clock has likely contributed to the barrage of stolen bases, as the pitcher has less time to divvy up their attention between the hitter and the runner, it’s difficult to separate its effects from those of the disengagement limits. One fear that has been batted around is that the decrease in time between pitches is putting more stress on pitchers’ arms; having to rear back and deliver a pitch every 15 seconds without the opportunity to catch your breath whenever you need to can tire muscles out quicker and lead to a mechanical breakdown. But while the injury data is inconclusive so far, there’s another measurable area in which the impact of throwing pitch after pitch with little respite could show up: long plate appearances. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the strange things about projecting baseball players is that even results themselves are small sample sizes. Full seasons result in specific numbers that have minimal predictive value, such as BABIP for pitchers. The predictive value isn’t literally zero — individual seasons form much of the basis of projections, whether math-y ones in something like ZiPS or simply personal opinions on how good a player is — but we have to develop tools that improve our ability to explain some of these stats. It’s not enough to know that the number of homers allowed by a pitcher is volatile; we need to know how and why pitchers allow homers beyond a general sense of pitching poorly or being Jordan Lyles.

Data like that what StatCast provides gives us the ability to get what is more elemental, such as exit velocities and launch angles and the like — things that are in themselves more predictive than their end products (the number of homers). StatCast has its own implementation of this kind of exercise in the various “x” stats. ZiPS uses slightly different models with a similar purpose, which I’ve dubbed zStats. (I’m going to make you guess what the z stands for!) The differences in the models can be significant. For example: when talking about grounders, balls hit directly toward the second base bag became singles 48.7% of the time from 2012 to ’19, with 51.0% outs and 0.2% doubles. But grounders hit 16 degrees to the “left” of the bag, over the same time period, only became hits 10.6% of the time and toward the second base side, 9.8%. ZiPS uses data like sprint speed when calculating hitter BABIP, because how fast a player is has an effect on BABIP and extra-base hits.

ZiPS doesn’t discard actual stats; the actual models all improve from knowing the actual numbers in addition to the zStats. For data on how zStats relate to actual stats, I’ve talked more about this here and here.

But you’re here to see the numbers themselves, not the exposition, so let’s star wipe to the main storyline. Read the rest of this entry »

After breaking their long postseason drought last year, the Mariners entered 2023 with some lofty expectations led by Julio Rodríguez, the AL Rookie of the Year, and a cadre of young pitchers. Seattle got off to a slow start in April, limping to a 12–16 record during the first month of the season. Things got a little better in May, but the team really turned on the jets over the last week and half, cruising through a 7–3 homestand that pushed its record to 29–27.

The real story of the week was Rodríguez, who earned American League Player of the Week honors by collecting 14 hits, six extra-base hits, and seven RBIs. He added another four hits and a home run against the Yankees earlier this week, raising his wRC+ from 86 to 111 in the span of these ten games.

Even though the Mariners have one of the best pitching staffs in the majors and a top-tier defense, the ongoing struggles of their offense have held them back to start this season. They’ve scored 4.45 runs per game thus far with a team wRC+ of 97, a little below league average. The slow start from Rodríguez has been a key aspect of that lack of production, though there are other (non) contributors too. Still, it seems like as Julio goes, the Mariners go.

Rodríguez got off to a similar slow start during his rookie campaign last year: through April, he was batting just .205/.284/.260 with a 61 wRC+ and a gaudy 37.0% strikeout rate. He hit his first major league home run on May 1, though, and never looked back from there. This year, his struggles were a little more pronounced and prolonged: through May 21, he was slashing .204/.280/.376, good for an 86 wRC+ with a 28.5% strikeout rate. Read the rest of this entry »