Watching the waning days of Albert Pujols’ career, one gets to remembering. The man cast such a huge shadow over the sport for so long, his early days seem like a different era. For a sense of how long, I remember hearing about him for the first time from a physical copy of USA Today’s Sports Weekly — the thing we used to read while walking to school uphill both ways, etc. The Cardinals, it was reported, were so impressed with a 21-year-old third baseman who’d barely played above low-A that they were considering plugging him into their Opening Day lineup.

Pujols’ rapid rise to prominence is unusual but not completely unheard of, and the rise of a precocious young hitter from the Dominican Republic conjures up certain images: signing as a teenager, working up through the low minors, proving himself against grown men at an age when his American counterparts are still eating meal plan tater tots and going to frat parties.

But Pujols, who moved to New York and then to Independence, Missouri, as a teenager, was a college baseball player. He played one season at Maple Woods Community College (now Metropolitan Community College-Maple Woods). There, he did about what you’d expect one of the best hitters ever to do against juco competition: hit .466 with 22 home runs in 56 games, led his team to a regional title, and earned All-American honors. That spring, the Cardinals picked him in the 13th round of the draft, and two years after that he was in the majors. Two World Series, three MVP awards, and almost 700 home runs later, you know the rest of the story. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 992

This week on the show, we welcome one of the biggest names in baseball writing to talk about a court case with big implications for the sport before our newest full-time hire makes his podcast debut.

• To begin, Eric Longenhagen is joined by Jeff Passan, ESPN writer and author of The Arm, to discuss the pair of teenage prospects who have sued the Los Angeles Angeles in a Dominican Republic court, alleging that the organization reneged on verbal agreements to sign them. Eric and Jeff are familiar with how flawed the current international amateur system can be, and they consider what kinds of sweeping changes and regulations could arrive as the result of the case. We also hear about censoring yourself on-air, the potentially playoff-bound Seattle Mariners, minor league unionization, baseball’s new rule changes, and teams that seem to be especially focused on making contact at the plate. [4:42]
• After that, Ben Clemens welcomes Michael Baumann to the website and to the podcast. Michael wastes no time sharing why he thinks college baseball is worth your time, offering a rant about the evils of golf, and issuing a challenge to Eric to meet him in The Octagon. The duo also chat about how it can be a little intimidating to write for the FanGraphs readership compared to a single-team site. Finally, the pair discuss Christian Walker, who Ben recently wrote about and who Michael shares an alma mater with. The Diamondbacks first baseman is quietly having a great season thanks to strong defense and his ability to hit the ball pretty darn hard. [1:01:46]

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 90 minute play time.)

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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about minor leaguers officially joining the MLBPA and what minor league unionization might do to the game’s distribution of revenue, follow up on Gold Gloves for utility players, toilet flappers, and Joey Meneses, discuss Jon Berti’s pursuit of 40 stolen bases, what pickoff-attempt restrictions will do to the running game, and why they don’t mind making things easier for runners, examine a Jake McCarthy attempted steal of home, give the Diamondbacks their due, and muse on the different types of steals of home, the potential of the terms “sayonara hit” and “hero interview,” and the homer-hitting prowess of Eugenio Suárez before answering additional listener emails about the effects of the rules changes on infielder offense and pitchouts, swinging twice at one pitch, attempting to get out of tagging up, why the raglan sleeve is associated with “baseball shirts,” deciding to go double or nothing after scoring, emergency backup pitchers, directional arrows projected on the field, and the virtues of teams being pretty good instead of great or terrible, plus musings on listeners learning they like Scott Boras and pitch-clock countdowns on score bugs, and a Past Blast from 1904.

Audio intro: Ducks Ltd., “It’s Easy”
Audio outro: Ryan Pollie, “Steal Away”

Link to Evan on unionization
Link to Russell on minor league pay
Link to story on utility Gold Gloves
Link to story on Meneses interception
Link to Meneses letter
Link to Korky flapper sizing page
Link to Baumann on Berti
Link to Russell on the running game
Link to McCarthy steal attempt video
Link to BP on the steal attempt
Link to Altuve’s steal of home
Link to Ben C. on Arozarena running
Link to Ben on Murakami and Sasaki
Link to HR leaders since 2018
Link to pitchouts by season
Link to Sam on pitchouts
Link to Ben on pitchouts
Link to post on 2016 2B offense
Link to post on Moustakas at second
Link to story on shifting and infielders
Link to story on slowest possible pitch
Link to info on swing timing
Link to info on pitch timing
Link to story on Pence’s double hit
Link to raglan sleeve wiki
Link to story on baseball-shirt sexiness
Link to ESPN Daily on the EBUG
Link to Dodgers-Mets laser story
Link to EW listener emails database
Link to 1904 story source
Link to SABR game story
Link to Sol White’s book
Link to Rube Foster SABR bio
Link to 1904 World Series info
Link to Jacob Pomrenke’s website
Link to Jacob Pomrenke on Twitter

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Trayce Thompson may not be the most accomplished professional athlete in his family — not when father Mychal Thompson and older brother Klay Thompson have six NBA titles and five All-Star selections between them — but for the first time in six years, he’s making significant noise of his own at the major league level. Now on his second stint with the Dodgers, the 31-year-old Thompson is in the midst of a modest breakout, one that could have ramifications for Los Angeles’ roster in October and beyond.

A night after the Dodgers clinched their ninth NL West title in 10 years, Thompson started in right field in place of Mookie Betts and followed a solo homer by Will Smith with one of his own, a 445-foot shot off Zach Davies. That tied the game at 2–2, though Los Angeles eventually lost in extra innings.

The homer was Thompson’s 10th of the season in just 205 plate appearances; he’s the eighth Dodger to reach double digits. Even with a September slump, the well-traveled outfielder has the highest wRC+ of any Dodger since the All-Star break and is tied for third in WAR, behind or alongside three players who are going to wind up somewhere on MVP ballots:

That’s pretty lofty company for a player who’s on his third organization and fourth team (including affiliates) this season. Thompson is yet another reminder of the Dodgers’ ability to find diamonds in the rough and turn them into championship-caliber cogs, a facet of their organization that’s been as essential as their player development pipeline. Turner was in his age-29 season when he became a mainstay in 2014, Taylor in his age-26 season in ’17, and Muncy in his age-27 season in ’18. Despite their staggered starts, they’re three of the Dodgers’ five most valuable position players since Dave Roberts took over as manager in 2016. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been having fun producing estimates of when Aaron Judge might hit his 60th, 61st, and 62nd home runs this season. It’s cool for multiple reasons: I love home run chases, like most baseball fans, and I also like coming up with ways to answer seemingly difficult questions via simulation. It’s one of the same reasons I like writing about baseball in the first place: I think it’s very neat that I can think about baseball both very tangibly (Randy Arozarena’s baserunning) and abstractly.

Since I have the technology, I’ve gotten a fairly obvious request a few times in the past week: do it for Pujols. His improbable quest for 700 homers has turned into an unlikely quest, and now a “wait could he?” quest. At 697 dingers, he’s within hailing distance of a momentous number to retire on. I’m going to use the same tools that helped me model when Judge might hit some big homers to do the same for Pujols.

The bare bones of this system will be the same. I started with the Cardinals’ remaining schedule and the park factors for right-handed hitters in those stadiums. Almost immediately, though, I took a detour, because the Cardinals don’t use Pujols like the Yankees use Judge. At this stage in his career, Pujols is at his best against left-handed pitching. He also needs more off days than Judge, eminently reasonable given his age. That creates a playing time puzzle, so to figure out which games Pujols will play in, I used Roster Resource to work out which days I expect opposing teams to start lefty pitchers. On those days, I project Pujols to start and get three plate appearances (against lefties) 30% of the time, four (three against lefties) 55% of the time, and five (three against lefties) 15% of the time. This is definitely not perfect, but as a rough approximation, it’ll do. Read the rest of this entry »

In May, we put out an open call for contributing writers, and the response we received was overwhelming. We are very grateful that so many smart, passionate baseball writers wanted to be a part of what we do here. It made for some really difficult decisions (and a rather long hiring process), but we are very excited to welcome some talented new voices to our ranks.

A quick note to those who applied but weren’t hired: please keep writing. A number of people who have worked for the site weren’t hired on their first go but kept getting reps elsewhere on their way to making us regret having passed them by initially. Just because there wasn’t a home for you at FanGraphs this time around doesn’t mean that there won’t be one later, and in the meantime, public baseball analysis will be made better by your good words and good work.

And so, without further ado, allow me to introduce the writers whose work will soon be debuting here at the site. Read the rest of this entry »

12:02

Dan Szymborski: It’s a-me, Szymio!

12:02

Dan Szymborski: Correct.

12:04

Dan Szymborski: I think the most Mets thing would have been if an outfielder threw firecrackers at a group of war widows and the GM got busted for going on a DUI bender with a mail truck

Read the rest of this entry »

Jackson Jobe has a bright future. Currently first in our Detroit Tigers prospect rankings, the 20-year-old right-hander is coming off a first full professional season during which he logged a 3.94 ERA and 81 strikeouts in 77-and-a-third innings spent between Low-A Lakeland and High-A West Michigan. Drafted third overall last year out of Oklahoma City’s Heritage Hall High School, he pairs an array of plus offerings with elite athleticism. What’s more, according to our own Eric Longenhagen, the 6-foot-2, 210-pound Jobe “would have been a Day Two pick as a position player.”

Jobe discussed his early-career development, as well as the pitches in his power arsenal, at the conclusion of the Midwest League season.

———

David Laurila: Along with pitching, you showed a lot of promise as a position player. At what point did it become clear that your future was on the mound?

Jackson Jobe: “I’ve always pitched a little bit. Growing up, I always had a good arm — obviously, you’ve got to have a good arm to play shortstop — but I want to say it was my junior year. My junior year spring was COVID, so I only got one outing before our whole season got banged. At that point, I just kept training. Then summer came around, and they were still doing some of the showcases.

“Perfect Game had a showcase — I want to say it was PG National — and I got invited there to play shortstop and pitch a few innings. I ended up throwing really well. It kind of just clicked, I guess. I threw harder than I’d ever done before. The slider was good. From that point forward, my phone was blowing up with agents and scouts. That was kind of the beginning for me as far as pitching goes.” Read the rest of this entry »

Jon Berti is a player of immense historical import, and you’ll never guess why.

No, that’s wrong. If you know anything about Jon Berti, you probably know exactly why he’s a player of immense historical import. Berti has actually put together a pretty nice all-around season: He can play anywhere and while he’s hitting for basically zero power, his .344 OBP makes him quite a valuable player for the Miami Marlins.

But more to the point: He’s extremely fast, with 96th-percentile sprint speed according to Baseball Savant, and he’s determined to get his money’s worth from this physical gift. Despite being limited to just 83 games by a bout of COVID in May and a groin strain in July, Berti has stolen 34 bases. A quick run through Berti’s event log reveals that he has been on first or second with nobody on the base ahead of him 97 times this season, and on 38 of those occasions he’s decided to keep running as far as his little legs will carry him, plus four more pickoffs that don’t count toward his caught stealing total.

That kind of aggressiveness is admirable, but distressingly rare. Berti, despite only playing in a little more than half his team’s games, is leading the majors in stolen bases. If he finishes the season with fewer than 40 steals, it will be the lowest majors-leading stolen base total of any full season since 1958. Read the rest of this entry »