Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about two of the worst defensive plays of the season, which came courtesy of the Tigers and Nationals, Albert Pujols pitching and walking, the Pirates winning without a hit (but with one correct prediction), and the breakout of Taylor Ward; answer listener emails about banning gray uniforms, baseball jugglers, listing pitchers’ batting handedness in the universal-DH era, vetoing shifts and pitching changes, and catchers squatting too close to hitters; then Stat Blast (1:08:55) about the most consecutive trades made by one team, the best one-day home and road records, and the most back-to-back homers in a season by teams and players, before reflecting on how the (o)possums in the press box in Oakland may get along with their feral-cat neighbors (plus a few postscript updates).
Last year’s National League West race was a doozy, with the 107-win Giants outpacing the 106-win Dodgers, but this year’s race is shaping up to be an interesting one for a different reason. Through Sunday, all five teams owned winning percentages of .500 or better, though Monday’s loss by the Rockies (17-18), part of a 1-7 skid, upset that arrangement. Even so, it’s an impressively strong division headed by the Dodgers (22-12), with the Padres (22-13) and Giants (21-14) close behind, and the Diamondbacks (18-18) and Rockies playing quite respectably, and much improved over last season.
The biggest surprise of the bunch is the Diamondbacks, who just last year tied the Orioles for the majors’ worst record at 52-110 and finished a honkin’ 55 games out of first place. The team did not have a high-impact offseason; the only free agents the Diamondbacks signed to major league deals were starter Zach Davies and relievers Mark Melancon and Ian Kennedy, with Melancon’s two-year deal the only one stretching beyond 2022. They weren’t exactly big players in the trade market, either, with Sergio Alcántara and Jordan Luplow representing their highest-profile acquisitions. That pair has combined for 103 plate appearances and 0.1 WAR, and Alcántara was DFA’d and lost to the Padres via waivers earlier this month. Read the rest of this entry »
This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post that runs during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.
Notes
Loftin, who was drafted as a shortstop, was first listed as an outfielder on the Royals’ 2022 winter minicamp roster and has begun a transition to center field, playing there exclusively so far in 2022. It’s a logical move given the glut of middle infielders ahead of him in the org, and it’s worth noting that the Royals timed it so Loftin would have two seasons of play prior to his 40-man deadline day to make the move. While Loftin still needs some technical polish (for instance, he has a tendency to backpedal rather than turn his hips and run, and he doesn’t look comfortable with at-’em balls) and often looks like a recent conversion guy out there, his gap-to-gap range is very exciting, and he has the pure speed to be an above-average or better center field defender with reps.
Much more polished is Loftin’s bat. He’s extremely tough to beat with velocity and squares up fastballs with regularity, spraying them into both gaps. He keeps things incredibly simple at the plate, which is part of why he has made such consistent contact, but one can imagine him making more athletic use of his lower half and adding more power eventually. Loftin is also a very wiry, pretty skinny guy. He’s 23, so maybe the cement on his body is dry, but between his frame still having room for mass and his swing perhaps housing dormant power, there are a few potential avenues for him to add thump. Right now he profiles as a contact-oriented center fielder, a profile that’s currently pretty scarce across baseball. Myles Straw is a more extreme contemporary example. Read the rest of this entry »
Josh VanMeter was in the news earlier this month for being put in an unfortunate position. A 27-year-old infielder with the Pittsburgh Pirates, VanMeter moved behind the plate in the eighth inning of a tie game when the team was forced to employ an emergency catcher. It didn’t go particularly well. Wearing the Tools of Ignorance for the first time since he was 14 years old, the Ossian, Indiana native took a foul tip off the mask, and Pittsburgh pitchers surrendered seven runs in his lone inning of unscheduled action.
There is more to VanMeter than his ill-fated notoriety. A 2013 fifth-round pick by the San Diego Padres who broke into the big leagues with the Cincinnati Reds in 2019, and who has since played for the Arizona Diamondbacks and now the Pirates, VanMeter is a bona fide hitting nerd.
In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, VanMeter sat down during a recent series at PNC Park to discuss the art and science of the craft.
———
David Laurila: You’re a hitting nerd…
Josh VanMeter: “I am. It all started back in 2016 when I was with the Padres. I was in the Cal League and having a pretty good year, then got promoted to Double-A San Antonio about halfway through. I had a hitting coach there named Johnny Washington — he’s the assistant with the Cubs now — and I’ll never forget. I was a guy who hit a lot of groundballs and would occasionally clip some homers, but I was super steep. Within a week, Johnny — who I still love to this day — was like, ‘Man, that ain’t gonna work.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean it ain’t gonna work?’ I was 21 and had been having some success. But he was right. That half season I was in Double-A, I really struggled. Read the rest of this entry »
FanGraphs is now accepting applications to join our staff as a full-time writer.
We’re looking for someone who can provide daily insight about the ins and outs of what is happening in the game. From free agent signings to statistical analysis, teams’ top prospects to in-game strategy, highlights to lowlights, we want to cover it all. Familiarity and comfort with the data here at FanGraphs is a requirement, but just as importantly, we’re looking for a writer who can generate their own ideas and questions while providing interesting analysis and commentary on the game of baseball. Read the rest of this entry »
FanGraphs is now accepting applications to join our staff as a contributing writer.
Contributors typically write two to three times a week. Familiarity and comfort with the data here on FanGraphs is a requirement, but just as importantly, we’re looking for writers who can generate their own ideas and questions while providing interesting analysis or commentary on the game of baseball. From free agent signings to statistical analysis, teams’ top prospects to in-game strategy, highlights to lowlights, we want to cover it all. Sometimes we do that with a bit of silliness; other times, we’re more serious. But what all of our work has in common is a commitment to asking interesting questions and using rigor, creativity, and the latest analytical tools to find the answers for our readers. Read the rest of this entry »
If I may, I think the uncertainty regarding this season’s offensive environment has made us a bit paranoid. Are hitters lagging behind pitchers due to an irregular spring training? Is the ball not traveling like it once did because it’s been replaced yet again, or is the mass introduction of humidors to blame? Or worse, has MLB introduced multiple balls into the game, some of which are being used in certain games to boost action or influence outcomes?
That last theory has been floating around my Twitter feed for a while now. I’m not going to discuss whether it’s true, but I brought it up because supporters of the multiple ball theory will often compare two batted balls with near-identical exit velocities and launch angles. One ends up traveling more than the other, despite all the indications that it should not. Aha! Something must be up.
In response, a lot of people have suggested batted ball spin as an explanation. Maybe one ball came off the bat with backspin and the other came off with topspin, which would drag the ball down as it traveled through the air. Unfortunately, since data on batted ball spin isn’t available on Baseball Savant, this might seem like a dead end. Don’t worry, though: I had some leftover Trackman data on 2021 NCAA Division I baseball games from a piece that Eric Longenhagen and I collaborated on during last year’s Draft Week, and they contain mostly complete readings on the spin of a batted ball. Could we use collegiate baseball to learn about the odds and ends of batted ball spin, and what it tells us about hitting? Read the rest of this entry »
A quick word of warning: this one is pretty abstract. If you like baseball math, it’s definitely got that. If you like analysis of the 2022 major league season, it absolutely does not have that. I think it’s pretty fun, but if that’s not your cup of tea, this one might not be for you. Anyway: on to the nonsense!
I’m the kind of maniac who likes to play baseball video games when I’m not writing about baseball. Right now, that’s Out Of The Park 23, specifically the Perfect Team mode. It’s a baseball simulation where you collect cards representing current and historical players, build teams, and then play simulated games against other players’ teams.
The headline mode of the game lets you collect whoever you want and battle against your opponents’ best shot – peak Mickey Mantle against peak Tex Hughson, say. That’s fun in its own way (for what it’s worth, Mantle strikes out more than you’d like when facing top-tier competition), but I’m more interested in another mode the game offers: tournaments where you match a limited pool of your players against a limited pool of opponents. Read the rest of this entry »
Pitchers getting injured is never good news, even in a year in which pitching talent seems relatively easy to come by. Sadly, we got a bunch of high-profile names hitting the IL over the weekend, so here’s a quick Monday rundown in case you were doing something more fun on Sunday than stressing about injuries, like watching the baseball games (non-Giants fans, at least).
Given the monumental task of replacing Jacob deGrom in the Mets’ rotation at the start of the season, Megill took his job surprisingly literally, doing his best imitation of the team’s ace. Through six starts, his ERA stood at 2.43 with a nearly identical FIP at 2.44, improving significantly on his major league debut in 2021. Then came the worst start of his professional career — including the minors — as he surrendered eight runs and didn’t even make it through the second inning against the Nationals last Wednesday. Megill can’t point to bad luck either; it’s hard to complain too strenuously about BABIP when you have an xBA of .563 and an xSLG of 1.263.
On the plus side, Megill’s velocity wasn’t down during that disaster of a start, and he didn’t report any discomfort until after the game. One thing that struck me, however, is how much his horizontal release point has changed in a lateral direction throughout the season. From his first start to his last outing, Megill’s horizontal release point has shifted about five inches; those release points tend to be far more consistent in-season, as players are more likely to tinker with this in the winter and spring. Release point inconsistency is a concern, and at least one study that I’m familiar with has linked shifting lateral release points with an eventual need for Tommy John surgery, albeit with low odds (a roughly 5% higher chance of a UCL tear with every 10 centimeters of movement). That’s getting ahead of ourselves, but it’s something to file in the back of your mind.
The decision to put Megill on the IL was made after he experienced soreness during his bullpen on Saturday, with biceps tendinitis as the announced culprit. Colin Holderman got the immediate call-up to take Megill’s spot on the roster, though that may be short-lived, as David Peterson started on Friday. Trevor Williams will get Megill’s start on Monday night against the Cardinals.
In other Mets injury news — of course there’s more, it’s the Mets — catcher James McCann will be out six weeks due to a broken hamate bone. Patrick Mazeika was called up and likely endeared himself to Mets fans more than McCann has by hitting the go-ahead home run in the seventh on Saturday against the Mariners. McCann’s offense has disappeared so quickly over the last year-plus that there’s not likely to be any real consequence for the Mets other than a thinning of the depth chart.
Amid a promising comeback campaign, Luzardo took a step back last week, walking four and allowing four runs in 2.2 innings against the Diamondbacks, bloating his ERA to 4.03. Like Megill, there were no suspicious velocity dropoffs — something to watch for given Luzardo’s injury history — but he reported forearm soreness after the game. In “crossing our fingers” news, he did not believe the pain was similar to what he experienced before his first Tommy John surgery, back when he was a high schooler in 2016:
I just started feeling a little something in the San Diego game, towards the back end of it, but nothing when I was pitching or anything like that. It was more just a little soreness. I kind of backed off a little between my starts. There wasn’t really pain or anything, more like stiffness.
The Marlins held off until this weekend to place Luzardo on the IL, retroactive to his May 10 start, when it became evident that he would be unavailable. It seems that Cody Poteet, already stretched out a bit in relief of Luzardo against Arizona and not used since, will get the spot start on Tuesday, with Sandy Alcantara going on Monday.
As for replacing Luzardo long-term, it doesn’t appear as if the Marlins plan to recall top prospect Max Meyer to fill the spot. My reading of the tea leaves is that they’re not going to push Edward Cabrera up soon as a replacement either; while he’ll get another chance in the not-too-distant future, I think Saturday’s start against Triple-A Nashville would have been a few tune-up innings rather than a 90-pitch outing if a callup was imminent.
Short of any additional bad news, it’s entirely possible that, with two off days in the next week, Luzardo may only miss just the one start.
Kershaw was a late scratch on Friday against the Phillies, pushing Walker Buehler’s start up a day on normal rest. Kershaw has a history of lower back pain and at least one instance (2012) of hip impingement, so the Dodgers are being careful with him. The culprit this time is inflammation of the SI joint, which, I believe, is the sacroiliac joint and not the Sports Illustrated joint; on the pelvis, it’s between the hip and the spine. As I did not attend Hollywood Upstairs Medical College, and my medical knowledge is primarily evaluating how sick I’ll feel if I eat some deliciously spicy food, let’s consult actual doctors here:
Biomechanically, the sacroiliac joint performs several functions. Primarily, its purpose is to attenuate the distribution of force loads from the lower extremities. It functions both as a shock absorber for the spine above and converts torque from the lower extremities into the rest of the body.
As pitching largely involves transfers of force between body parts, it’s understandable why the Dodgers see the need to be cautious. Last year was the first time Kershaw was placed on the IL with elbow issues, and given that it scared them enough to shut him down quickly for the postseason, this is not unexpected caution.
To replace Kershaw on the roster, the Dodgers called up Michael Grove, who got the start on Sunday and may get another down the road, though with a very quick hook. Andre Jackson looked like a rotation fallback option at the start of the season, but he’s failed to finish the third in each of his last three starts for Triple-A Oklahoma City, allowing 10 walks in just 3.1 innings.
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