The Josh Hader trade isn’t the only deadline deal that has yielded less-than-rewarding results thus far for the Padres. Juan Soto hasn’t been as bad as Hader at his worst (the closer has lately righted the ship), but after a good start for his new team, he’s fallen into a deep slump. As the Padres battle to hold onto the third NL Wild Card spot, his struggles are worth a closer look.

When he was acquired from the Nationals in an eight-player blockbuster on August 2, Soto was in the midst of a solid-but-not-great season by his own high standards. While his 151 wRC+ was only four points off his career mark, his .246/.408/.485 line was far below his typical slash stats (.291/.427/.538) — not enough to be a dealbreaker or to rate as a significant long-term concern, but notable nonetheless. That said, the Padres’ right field mess made my Replacement Level Killers list, and an on-base percentage above .400 will cover a multitude of sins.

Soto debuted with the Padres on August 3, going 1-for-3 with a pair of walks in a 9–1 rout of the Rockies. He continued to hit well (.286/.438/.460 from August 3 to 21), but on August 23, he was scratched from the lineup with what the Padres called “left mid-back tightness.” Via MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell, “His back flared up while he was swinging in the batting cage shortly before first pitch. During the game, Soto took further swings in the cage, hoping he might get a chance to pinch-hit, but he wasn’t able to.”

Soto didn’t play again until August 27, though he missed just three games thanks to a schedule that bracketed a two-game series against the Guardians with off days on either side. Upon returning, he collected hits in his first two plate appearances against the Royals’ Daniel Lynch, and the next night homered off Anthony Misiewicz. But in the 13 games since then, he’s gone 3-for-42, all singles, and didn’t collect an RBI until Tuesday night. He’s walked 12 times during that stretch and was hit by a pitch — causing him to leave a September 7 game with a right shoulder contusion, which may be a contributing factor here — en route to a .120/.313/.180 post-injury performance. In all, his six hits over a 15-game span is the second-lowest total of his major league career; he had five hits in 15 games in two overlapping stretches in September 2019.

Is the slump as bad as it looks? My assumption going into this investigation was “probably not,” given that even with his return against the Royals, we’re talking about a total of 64 plate appearances and even fewer batted ball events. With the caveat that this is some small sample spelunking, it’s worth noting that since his absence, Soto has pretty much matched his Statcast stats for the first four and a half months of the season, which is to say that he’s hit the ball as hard, more or less:

Soto has produced a similar average exit velo and hard-hit rate and a slightly lower barrel rate (the difference in the smaller sample amounts to falling about two barrels short), but very different expected and actual outcomes. Note the difference in average launch angle; Soto generally ranks among the game’s top power hitters despite the fact that he hits the ball on the ground about half the time (career 48.6% groundball rate) and has an average launch angle below 10 degrees. In fact, since his debut in 2018, he’s one of four players with a slugging percentage above .500 (.528) and an average launch angle below 10 degrees (8.4); the other three — Eloy Jiménez, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and Christian Yelich — all have SLGs in the .507–.510 range with angles in the 5.9–8.3 degree range. If Soto is averaging 16.4 degrees even for a stretch of time, something is probably off. Read the rest of this entry »

We should know better by now than to doubt the Guardians. Every year it seems like they shed at least one important player, and every year (not literally every year, but most years) they scheme, finesse, and otherwise inveigle their way back to the playoffs. This year, Cleveland’s position players are playing great defense and striking out less than any lineup in the league. On the other side of the ball, Cleveland — and stop me if you’ve heard this one before — has managed to cultivate depth by developing talented starters internally.

You know these pitchers: Cy Young winner Shane Bieber, All-Star closer Emmanuel Clase, Triston McKenzie, James Karinchak (who’s so dangerous umps check his hair for weapons like he’s Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers). And Cal Quantrill.

During the month of August, when Cleveland asserted control over the AL Central for the first time, Quantrill made six starts, pitched at least six innings each time, and posted a total ERA of 2.13. Bieber and McKenzie get most of the credit for the Guardians’ run prevention success, and deservedly so. But in this age of inch-perfect 98-mph two-seamers and strikeout rates in the 30% range, Quantrill is a throwback: an effective pitch-to-contact innings-eater. That he belongs to a little-celebrated archetype of player does not diminish his value to a team that’s operated all year with little room for error. Read the rest of this entry »

Jackson Wolf has unique characteristics. No. 22 on our updated San Diego Padres prospect rankings as a 35+ FV, the 23-year-old southpaw not only stands 6-foot-7 and features a deceptive delivery, his changeup grip is among the most unusual in the game. Drafted in the fourth round last year out of West Virginia University, he was described by Eric Longenhagen as “a funky, low-ish slot lefty with uncommon athleticism and flexibility… [with] arms-and-legs deception.”

A native of Gahanna, Ohio, Wolf made all but one of his 24 appearances with the High-A Fort Wayne TinCaps this season, logging a 4.21 ERA and 4.32 FIP with 95 hits allowed and 139 strikeouts in 142 innings. He sat down to discuss his repertoire, and the outlier properties that come with it, earlier this summer.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with how you self-identify as a pitcher. How do you get guys out?

Jackson Wolf: “I actually just had this conversation with one of our coordinators. Finding my identity is something we’ve addressed this year, and getting outs isn’t going to come from blowing fastballs by guys. It’s going to come from using my movement, and from using my weird motion and leverage — kind of my deception — to get hitters uncomfortable and off-balance.” Read the rest of this entry »

When Randy Arozarena burst onto the national stage, he did so as the best hitter in baseball. For one postseason, he channeled peak Joe DiMaggio, hitting a ludicrous .377/.442/.831 in the 2020 playoffs. He was no slouch in the playoffs last year either, posting a .333/.474/.600 line, albeit in just four games. If you follow baseball in October, you probably think of Arozarena as a bruising power hitter. During the regular season, though, he’s something else entirely.

That’s not to say he’s a bad hitter. In fact, he’s put together an excellent 2022 line by cutting down on strikeouts. He’s been solid at the plate for three straight years now. He boasts a 133 wRC+ since the start of the 2020 season, a top 25 mark among all hitters over that timeframe, sandwiched between some guys you probably think are comfortably better than him: Corey Seager and Will Smith.

That’s great, and fine, but that’s not what I want to talk about. Arozarena is good in a conventional way in the batter’s box. He’s wild, and perhaps kind of bad, on the basepaths. It’s an absolute blast. Observe.

In the first game of yesterday’s doubleheader against the Blue Jays, Arozarena was busy early. In the first inning, he grounded into a force out, but beat out the double play relay throw to keep the inning alive and score a run. Arozarena is obviously fast; when you watch him you can’t help thinking of a defensive back in the open field. He’s compact and explosive; when he hustles down the line, you can almost hear the footsteps coming.

In the third inning, Arozarena delivered another RBI groundout, ho hum. That’s when things got interesting. With two outs and Manuel Margot at the plate, Arozarena got the itch to run. He gets that itch a lot; he’s attempted 39 steals this year and succeeded on 29 of them. I wouldn’t call his base-stealing instincts great, but I would call them voracious. In fact, he’d already scratched that itch in this very game, stealing second in the first inning without a throw.

But if one steal is good, two is better. Arozarena doesn’t so much steal on the pitcher as on the general disbelief that he can be stopped. A man on first and two outs? It’s a classic base-stealing opportunity, a situation where you only need to be successful 70% of the time to break even. Say no more – it was go time for Arozarena. Even a hidden ball trick attempt couldn’t stop him:

On 1-0, Arozarena took off and stole second easily:

Or did he? Home plate umpire Ramon De Jesus didn’t think so:

Margot inadvertently made contact with Danny Jansen on his backswing, as you can clearly see from a reverse angle:

Easy call, if you’re a veritable encyclopedia of baseball rules like De Jesus. If a batter inadvertently makes contact with a catcher on his backswing, the stolen base attempt simply doesn’t count; the runner has to go back to first, but the result of the pitch counts. You don’t see that one every day, but it seems like a pretty fair rule.

Not that there was any suspense about whether Arozarena was running, but now it was doubly obvious. Mitch White threw over to first before his next pitch, and Arozarena giggled a bit at Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who actually threw the ball back to White this time:

After bluffing a steal on 1-1 (he stopped after a bad jump), Arozarena was yet again on the move, and yet again easily safe:

But, uh, you’re not gonna believe it:

Yep, another clear case of inadvertent interference on Margot’s backswing. I don’t know if I’ve seen two of those calls all year, let alone two in the same at-bat. What could Arozarena do but sulk back to first?

Honestly, I’d GIF the entire at-bat if I could. The Jays and Rays should keep cameras on Arozarena and Guerrero at first base; every time the broadcast panned there, they were bantering back and forth, presumably about how ridiculous the situation was. Arozarena is a ton of fun to watch, particularly on the basepaths, and he was in fine form yesterday. But that wasn’t even the best part of this particular time on base.

When Margot put a ball in play, it stopped being a stolen base opportunity, and instead became an opportunity to get a head of steam and make something happen on the basepaths. Arozarena loves to do nothing else more – and that’s much to his detriment. He’s made 12 outs on the basepaths this year, the third-highest mark in the majors (Jose Altuve has 15, Yandy Díaz 14). Despite his blinding speed, he’s among the worst in the game by UBR, our measure of how many runs a player has added or lost based on their non-stealing baserunning. That’s basically tied with Alejandro Kirk, who isn’t exactly known for being fleet footed. The Rays are on course for a historical tally of outs made on the basepaths, thanks in no small part to Arozarena and Díaz.

And those outs add up. Making an out on the bases every once in a while is unavoidable, but Arozarena racks them up in bunches. He’s a gambler with unshakeable faith in his speed, but major league outfielders are pretty dang good. Still, you don’t steal home in a playoff game if you’re not pushing the envelope. Rays fans surely fret about the extra outs, but there’s no denying the adrenaline rush he produces every time he tries.

Margot gave him another chance to shine, shooting a hard-hit ball off of Matt Chapman and into left field. Since Arozarena was running on the pitch, there was no doubt he’d reach third base. But he went one further:

Wait, uh, what? I’ve seen a lot of baseball in my day, but I can’t think of any runners scoring from first on a single since Enos Slaughter’s famous mad dash (and that was ruled a double). This wasn’t even a particularly deep hit; Teoscar Hernández was in shallow left field when he fielded the ball.

My favorite part of this play is that Arozarena wasn’t even running hard the whole time:

That’s not to say he was loafing; he played it by the book until he reached third. There’s no reason to sharply round second on a grounder there, so he was pulling in safely. When the ball kicked into the outfield, he took third base, again without needing to kick it into high gear.

That’s a by-the-numbers play by a fast baserunner. Then, Arozarena channeled vroom vroom guy. Look at where he was when Hernández fielded the ball:

I don’t even know what to think about this. This isn’t just that Arozarena knows he’s fast. He could be peak Cool Papa Bell and not cover that much ground before a throw made it home. He wasn’t even running at full speed there; he was throttling down to stop at third.

That deceleration didn’t last long. When Hernández didn’t immediately throw to a relay man but instead started jogging in, Arozarena mashed the turbo button. He went from a slow jog to a sprint, catching Hernández off guard.

It still shouldn’t have mattered. Hernández was in shallow left field, with the ball in his hands, when Arozarena touched third base. This isn’t about testing a fielder’s arm; I don’t think there’s any outfielder in the major leagues who couldn’t make that throw if they knew they were going home with the ball, particularly now that Khris Davis plays for the Wild Health Genomes of the Atlantic League.

This was outright picking on the frailties of the human brain. Major league players are great athletes, masters of their craft, but thousands upon thousands of hours spent playing baseball builds pattern recognition, pattern recognition that Arozarena weaponized on this play (which I’ll just note wasn’t scored an error). When Hernández fielded that ball, he knew the play was over. One look at the runners – Arozarena decelerating into third, Margot cooling his heels at first – told him all he needed to know. This play was over; no need to come up throwing and risk an error.

You can see it in the way he fields the ball. No one in the stadium was expecting that play to require a full-effort throw, Hernández included:

I love it. I love everything about it. I wish every baserunner behaved more like this. I don’t mean getting thrown out on the basepaths, though to be honest I’m in for the occasional light-hearted TOOTBLAN. I’m talking about the combination of speed, belief, and guile that led to Arozarena creating a run out of thin air. That wasn’t a run-scoring opportunity. Usain Bolt wouldn’t have scored there. Plenty of runners wouldn’t have scored from second there.

In fact, I love this play so much that I’m going to break down Arozarena’s mad dash into three parts. First, the attempted steal and realization that the ball is in play:

That’s pretty standard. I think he had the base stolen pretty easily, and when he saw a grounder to third base, he correctly throttled down at second. When the ball kicked away from Chapman, the next read was automatic, something that every fast player in the majors does instinctively:

Again, easy. After an initial acceleration, he realized there wouldn’t be a competitive play at third base and did what every runner does in his situation: ease off. With the advantage of starting in motion, any baserunner in the majors would likely reach third there. But what happened next was pure genius, and it’s more fun in an isolation view of Arozarena. Even as he was decelerating into third, he made up his mind that he was going to pick on Hernández:

He had eyes on Hernández fielding the ball. When he turned his head away, he had made up his mind: he was going to hope Hernández made a bad throw from a tough position, coasting towards second and throwing halfway across his body. I’m honestly not even sure it was much of a gamble; Arozarena had time to peek back and see the throw, and was still close enough to third that he could have made it back safely if the throw was on line.

That’s something you don’t see every day, because if you saw it every day it wouldn’t work. You can’t subvert expectations for fun and profit if you’re always doing it; those expectations would change. This was a sublime moment, but it was just a moment: Arozarena also makes plenty of overly-aggressive attempts at extra bases that end in disaster.

On this day, though, he was perfect, and his speed and derring-do accounted for two RBIs and a run in a 4-2 Tampa Bay victory. But all that running takes a toll. After two successful stolen bases that got called back, two pickoff throws, a bluffed steal, a foul ball on a steal attempt, and that trip around the bases, Arozarena was gassed:

Who could blame him? That’s a lot of running, and a lot of thinking on his feet while doing it.

Baserunning doesn’t always work out this well for Randy Arozarena. It almost never works out this well, in fact. Even counting this play, he’s been an atrocious baserunner this year. But I don’t really care because that was a blast. I audibly gasped when I saw this play developing in real time. He couldn’t score from there, could he? How could he even think about trying to score from there? Then, of course, he went and did it. More audible gasps in baseball. More audacious baserunning decisions. More Randy Arozarena, please.

Before this year, it looked like Christian Walker might be washed up before he ever had a chance to shine, a player on the decline while breaking through. After a breakout 2019 that saw him finally step out of the shadow of the men he’d backed up (he was second in line behind Chris Davis, took a whirlwind tour through Cincinnati and Atlanta in a wild spring training of DFAs, and then landed behind Paul Goldschmidt), Walker’s career outlook appeared bright. But all that apprenticeship time hurt, and so did the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Walker put together another promising year – .271/.333/.459 with a markedly improved strikeout rate – but time simply wasn’t on his side. 2021 was his age-30 season, and also his worst big league campaign yet. He posted a below-average hitting line, lost power while striking out more often, and generally regressed across the board.

Some version of that story happens frequently in baseball. The whims of fate are cruel: baseball isn’t exclusively a young man’s game, but you have to be a very good player to hold a starting role into your 30s. Find yourself in the wrong system, or miss some time with injury, and you can be 30 before you know it, with only three years of service time and a tenuous major league spot. Corner infielders with average bats abound; they make a good living playing baseball, but they mostly bop around from team to team as waiver wire fodder and up-and-down platoon pieces. Read the rest of this entry »

Though he’s not the only reason that the Orioles are above .500 and still have a non-zero chance of claiming an AL Wild Card spot, Adley Rutschman has been at the center of Baltimore’s return to relevance. The top pick in the 2019 draft and the top prospect in the game entering this season has been nothing less than the Orioles’ best player. He’s already staked his claim as one of the game’s top catchers and put himself among notable historical company.

After splitting last season between Double-A Bowie and Triple-A Norfolk, the 24-year-old Rutschman began this season at High-A Aberdeen, not for performance reasons but because he was rehabbing a right triceps strain that he suffered in mid-March. He played five games there, starting on April 26, then three games at Bowie and 12 at Norfolk before being called up to the majors on May 21.

At the time, the Orioles were just 16–24 for the AL’s third-worst record. They were already 13 games behind the Yankees in the AL East race and 5.5 games out of the third Wild Card spot; their Playoff Odds registered at zero. Since then, they’ve gone 57–43 for the AL’s fourth-best record behind the Astros (65–35), Mariners (62–38), and Blue Jays (58–43), and ahead of the Yankees (57–46), Guardians (57–46), and Rays (55–45) — right in the middle of the six teams that would qualify for the playoffs if they began today.

The Orioles have improved markedly on both sides of the ball since Rutschman’s debut. Not all of that can be attributed to him, but when it comes to the team’s catching situation, the bar for upgrades was particularly low. Consider that Robinson Chirinos and Anthony Bemboom combined to “hit” .125/.233/.211 for a 32 wRC+ through May 20; Rutschman has replaced that by hitting a robust .251/.358/.442 for a 131 wRC+. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the change in catchers alone (which includes Chirinos’ continued work as a backup) was worth about 0.44 runs per game on the offensive side: Chirinos and Bemboom combined to produce all of five Weighted Runs Created in 40 games (0.13 per game) where Rutschman and Chirinos have produced 51 in 90 games (0.57 per game). That’ll turn your season around.

Rutschman has been a boon on the defensive side as well. The framing-inclusive version of Defensive Runs Saved, which Baseball Reference publishes but does not use in its WAR calculations, credits the new guy with being 16 runs above average, second in the majors behind only Jose Trevino; Chirinos, at 10 runs below average, is third-worst (Bemboom is right at average). By Baseball Prospectus’ measure of catcher defense, Rutschman (7.3 runs) ranks 12th in the majors, and Chirinos (-15.0) is second-to-last, with Bemboom (0.1) right at average. FanGraphs’ measure of framing runs echos those two estimates: Rutschman fourth overall at 6.3 runs, Bemboom at 0.1, and Chirinos second-to-last at -12.8. Again using a back-of-the-envelope estimate, and assuming Chirinos has been uniformly subpar across the season (we don’t have defensive splits), the upgrade in catcher defense has been worth another 0.17 runs per game. That takes us to a swing of about a 0.61 runs per game by my admittedly rough estimate — and we haven’t even begun to discuss all of those Orioles pitchers outperforming their projections. That’s a story for another day.

Though he collected a triple in his major league debut and a single the next night, Rutschman started rather slowly, hitting just .143/.226/.196 (23 wRC+) though his first 15 games. He’s ramped up to .274/.384/.494 (152 wRC+) over the past three months, good enough to place in the majors’ top 20 in that admittedly arbitrary stretch of time.

Beyond his first few weeks in the majors, only twice has Rutschman failed to produce a 100 wRC+ over a 15-game span, and even then he wasn’t far off, with a 95 wRC+ around the 45-game mark and a 98 wRC+ at the 86-game mark. In an offense that can use all the help it can get, he’s been the team’s best hitter. Having said that, it’s worth noting that the 6-foot-2 switch-hitter has struggled mightily against lefties, hitting just .164/.303/.233 (64 wRC+) without a homer in 89 PA. Against righties, he’s raked at a .276/.375/.504 (152 wRC+) clip, with 10 homers in 288 PA. His platoon splits largely went unremarked upon as a prospect, probably because he hit .350/.439/.621 in 165 PA against lefties last year, though he fell to .169/.306/.225 in 108 PA this year before being called up. If there’s an area where he needs work, it’s this.

I’ll get back to the splits, but what stands out most on the offensive side is Rutschman’s exceptional command of the strike zone, with a 24.8% chase rate and 91.2% zone contact rate; those are in the 89th and 88th percentiles, respectively. His 6.4% swinging-strike rate, meanwhile, is in the 90th percentile. Overall, he’s walking 13.5% of the time and striking out just 17.8% of the time. On the other hand, Rutschman’s contact stats are less impressive, and rather anemic when he’s hitting righty:

Percentile-wise, only Rutschman’s barrel rate and xwOBA are above average, the latter thanks mainly to his plate discipline. One factor in those splits is that he pulls the ball quite a lot (46.3% overall) and has faced the shift on about 95% of his balls in play. He’s less pull-happy as a lefty, less prone to hitting the ball on the ground, and handles the shift pretty well. As a righty, that’s not the case:

Given the coming rule change regarding defensive positioning, it will be interesting to see how much this affects Rutschman’s production; I don’t think he’ll bemoan the prohibition of infield shifts, to say the least.

With the caveat that the sample sizes for the bookend months are about half the size as the full ones even if I don’t split them by handedness, you can get an idea of Rutschman’s improvement against various pitch groups:

Rutschman struggled against fastballs initially but soon was managing an xwOBA in the neighborhood of .400 against them and lately has been even better. In all, he’s seven runs above average against four-seamers according to Statcast, and two above against sinkers. As he’s settled in, he’s improved considerably against offspeed stuff, though he’s been three runs below average against changeups overall. He’s had trouble with the curve (three runs below average) but not the slider (three above).

Even given his late arrival and the fact that there are still about three weeks to go in the season, Rutschman is third in WAR among catchers, behind only J.T. Realmuto (5.6 WAR) and Sean Murphy (4.6 WAR), and both of them have at least 100 more plate appearances. Meanwhile, he’s put together one of the great rookie seasons for a catcher:

I’ve highlighted the WARs of catchers for whom we have pitch-framing data (2008 onward), making it easier if you want to limit the comparison to more contemporary catchers. It’s worth noting that Baseball Prospectus’ framing data, which goes back further than ours using Max Marchi’s retroframing methodology, credits Mauer with an additional 13.2 framing runs in 2005 and Piazza with an additional 8.9 runs in 1993 — about an extra 1.3 WAR for the former and 0.9 for the latter. Rutschman isn’t in Piazza’s league as a rookie, but he’s dead even with Posey in less playing time and not that far behind the framing-inclusive measure of Mauer, who had about 47% more playing time. Piazza is already in Cooperstown, and the other two should be once they become eligible. I’m not suggesting that Rutschman — who’s about the same age as the rookie Piazza was (both were in their age-24 seasons), about a year older than Posey, and about two years older than Mauer — is headed to the Hall of Fame just yet, but as points of comparison go, he could hardly do better.

As for whether Rutschman will take home this year’s AL Rookie of the Year honors, he trails Julio Rodríguez in WAR (4.5 to 4.0), but the Mariners’ center fielder has about a 40% advantage in playing time and is going to wind up with more impressive offensive numbers; he already has 25 homers, 24 steals, and a 141 wRC+. I suspect he’ll take home the hardware, but given Rutschman’s impact on the Orioles’ season, they ought to be quite pleased with the way their top draft pick from three years ago is panning out.

With the new playoff format, the best teams in baseball are coasting into October, hoping to get healthy and stay sharp as the regular season winds down. For the teams whose postseason hopes are slim but still alive, it’s getting close to crunch time, as big division matchups dominate the rest of the schedule.

A reminder for how these rankings are calculated: first, we take the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (a 50/50 blend of FIP- and RA9-, weighted by IP share) — and combine them to create an overall team quality metric. New for this year, I’ve opted to include defense as a component, though it’s weighted less heavily than offense and pitching. Some element of team defense is captured by RA9-, but now that FanGraphs has Statcast’s OAA/RAA available on our leaderboards, I’ve chosen to include that as the defensive component for each team. 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.

Note: All stats are through Sunday, September 11.

The Dodgers and Astros continue to glide toward the playoffs; both teams won four of their six games last week. The Dodgers clinched and then didn’t clinch their 10th straight postseason berth over the weekend, and should clinch the National League West division title sometime this week. The Astros could feasibly follow with a division-clinching of their own next week, as their magic number is down to 12. At this point, both teams should be focused on getting and keeping their rosters healthy and reaching the playoffs with everyone firing on all cylinders. For Houston, that means getting Justin Verlander back from his calf injury and up to a full workload. It would also be great if Jeremy Peña rediscovered the form that helped him jump out to an early American League Rookie of the Year lead before wilting this summer. With Dustin May back from his Tommy John surgery, the Dodgers don’t have as great a need in their rotation as Houston does, but getting Tony Gonsolin back in some capacity would certainly help their pitching depth.

The Mets briefly lost their hold on the NL East last week before regaining a 1.5-game lead over the weekend. They took the cautious route with Max Scherzer’s oblique injury, a move that could pay dividends come October. Obviously, clinching a first-round bye with a division title would allow their injured co-ace to heal up before being called on to carry a heavy load in the playoffs. With a lighter schedule than the Braves from here on out, New York is certainly the favorite to earn the second seed in the NL, though the three-game series in Atlanta during the final week of the season continues to loom exceedingly large.

The Yankees offense finally awoke from its summer slumber over the weekend, and with impeccable timing, too. With their division lead dwindling to just 3.5 games after their loss to the Rays on Friday, they scored 10 runs in back-to-back games to earn the series win against their closest division rival. That gives them a little more wiggle room as the season winds down, though they’ll need to continue to find new ways to score runs with a host of key offensive contributors still sidelined with minor injuries. Amazingly enough, Aaron Judge didn’t hit a home run over the weekend after launching one in four straight games to start last week; that seriously affects his chances of making home run history this season.

The Braves had an eight-game win streak snapped on Saturday and wound up dropping their weekend series against the Mariners after a wild walk-off loss on Sunday. Those two teams combined for 17 home runs in their three-game set, with two apiece in the ninth inning deciding the final game in the series. For their part, the Mariners looked up to the challenge presented by the defending champions, which has been one of the best teams in the NL this year. With a soft remaining schedule, this series against Atlanta was one of their last bellwethers to demonstrate they can compete with the best baseball has to offer. They showed exactly why they’ll be a force to be reckoned with come October.

Despite losing their weekend series in New York, the Rays have made an impressive run up the standings despite playing through a dizzying number of injuries. Wander Franco, Brandon Lowe, and Yonny Chirinos were all activated off the IL last week, and there’s a chance Nick Anderson and possibly even Tyler Glasnow could find their way back to the majors at some point during the season’s final weeks. Getting healthy now is critical because Tampa Bay and Toronto began a huge five-game series yesterday, and the Rays have six games against the Astros and four more against the Blue Jays still on the docket.

The Phillies bounced back from a rough West Coast road trip to win five of six games last week. They’ve continued to hold their ground in the NL Wild Card race, and it’s looking increasingly likely they’ll join the Mariners in snapping an extended postseason drought this year. Somewhat quietly, Aaron Nola has led all pitchers with 4.6 WAR since mid-May. Philadelphia is still waiting to learn the status of Zack Wheeler, but it’s encouraging to know their playoff rotation will be anchored by Nola with some options behind him.

The Padres couldn’t handle the Dodgers over the weekend, losing two of three. They’re still two games up on the Brewers and remain within striking distance of the Phillies for the second Wild Card spot. Josh Hader’s struggles have received most of the headlines, but Juan Soto (119 wRC+ in San Diego), Josh Bell (88 wRC+), and Brandon Drury (88 wRC+) haven’t exactly excelled since being dealt at the trade deadline. Soto will be around longer than just this year, but Bell and Drury are rentals and just aren’t producing at their normal levels (and the latter is on the IL with a concussion). That’s a big problem for a team hoping to avoid another crash-and-burn ending to its season.

The Guardians made a big statement over the weekend, sweeping the Twins to push their lead in the AL Central to three games. After letting the Twins and White Sox get alarmingly close to taking the division lead, the Guardians finally put a little distance between themselves and their division rivals. Their schedule this week is pretty wild: They’ll play the Angels three times, the White Sox once in a rescheduled rainout game, and then the Twins five times in four days from Friday to Monday. That’s a pretty brutal docket and the AL Central standings could look completely different at the end of it.

The White Sox aren’t going to go down without a fight. They won two of three in Seattle early last week and then won three of four in Oakland over the weekend. They’re still within striking distance of the Guardians in the AL Central and a long shot in the Wild Card race. The man leading the charge? Elvis Andrus! Since joining Chicago after getting dumped by the A’s in mid-August, he has posted a .293/.337/.511 slash line (141 wRC+) in 22 games and has buoyed the team in their most desperate hour.

The Orioles’ long-shot hopes took a beating last week. They lost three of four to the Blue Jays and then two of three to the Red Sox, and are now 5.5 games back in the Wild Card race. It’s looking more and more like they’ll have to settle for playing spoiler as this season winds down, though that should still provide some excitement and hope for their fans as they look to build on their late-season success next year.

Mike Trout hit a home run in his seventh consecutive game last night, perhaps giving fans in Los Angeles a glimpse at what could have been if he hadn’t slumped midseason or gotten injured for a month. Trout’s success is a small consolation for the Angels, who have been out of the playoff picture since their epic losing streak in May and June. And befitting Tungsten Arm O’Doyle, they’ve gone 3-4 during Trout’s homer streak.

There hasn’t been much movement in the race to the bottom. The same three teams hold the last three spots in the standings — and therefore the highest odds of receiving the first pick in the first MLB Draft lottery. The Tigers seem to be the only other team that could slip into one of those bottom three spots; they’re just 1.5 games ahead of the Pirates, and the Reds and Royals seem a little too far out at 4.5 games ahead.

…

The decision to change the closer is one of the most awkward a manager will face. Any other combination of bullpen arms can be shuffled around without most fans taking notice, but the save statistic and the entrance music make a closer highly conspicuous. Screw around with that guy, and it becomes a news story.

The Braves invested heavily in that position this winter, lavishing $16 million on 34-year-old Kenley Jansen. I’ll go to my grave believing this signing was at least partially about poaching a legendary Dodger the day after L.A. inked Freddie Freeman — you don’t want to go stag to prom when your ex has a date — but closers like Jansen don’t come along every day. The man pitched in three All-Star games and three World Series and entered the season with 350 career saves, more than Rollie Fingers, Robb Nen, or Bruce Sutter. Jansen had encountered some turbulence in the late 2010s and wasn’t putting up ERAs in the 1.00s anymore, but armed with a new sinker and slider, he’s still quite an effective closer.

Or, more accurately, he has been. In his past seven appearances dating back to August 27, Jansen has blown three saves in seven attempts, allowing 12 baserunners and three home runs in just 5.2 innings. On Sunday, the Braves launched a stirring five-run rally in the ninth to pull ahead of the Mariners, perhaps the only other team in all of baseball as hot as Atlanta. Jansen promptly surrendered two home runs and the lead. The second came on a 93-mph sinker right where Eugenio Suárez could 3-iron it into the Seattle bullpen. I had to look up what that pitch was, because the TV view bore little evidence of sink or cut.

MARINERS WALK IT OFF!! pic.twitter.com/ou5VYloSdX

— ROOT SPORTS™ | NW (@ROOTSPORTS_NW) September 11, 2022

Not a great way to lose a game, in short. And now Brian Snitker is getting questions about his star closer. So what should he do? Read the rest of this entry »

The Texas Rangers made meaningful changes this summer when they parted ways with manager Chris Woodward — Tony Beasley is currently serving in an interim capacity — and subsequently replaced Jon Daniels with Chris Young as their top front office decision-maker. But a move that has been every bit as impactful was made 10 months ago. Last November — shortly before Baseball America named him their MLB Coach of the Year — Donnie Ecker was hired away from the San Francisco Giants and given the title of Bench Coach/Offensive Coordinator.

Ecker’s reputation as a tech-and-data-savvy hitting nerd is well-earned. Prior to the two seasons he spent as Gabe Kapler’s hitting coach in San Francisco, the 36-year-old Los Altos, California native built his bona fides as an assistant hitting coach with the Cincinnati Reds, and before that as a minor-league hitting instructor in the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Angels organizations.

Ecker, who is well-educated in biomechanics and analytics, discussed some of the philosophies and practices he brought with him to Texas when the Rangers visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

———

David Laurila: You spend a lot of time at the ballpark, often arriving by 9 AM for a seven o’clock game. What does your day typically look like?

Donnie Ecker: “It starts with understanding where all of our people are at, zooming in on our hitters first and looking at the things that we find valuable. How is their performance aligning with our North Stars and peripherals? As a department, we want to be on top of that day-to-day. Most times, that’s a process of going deep and bringing up simple and actionable items to the surface. Everything is from the inside out, leading to what we want our conversations and training to look and feel like that day for that player. Read the rest of this entry »