When the Red Sox traveled to Toronto in late April, they had to shuffle their roster around to comply with Canada’s vaccination entry requirements. The biggest impact was felt in their starting rotation, as Tanner Houck had to be placed on the restricted list due to his vaccination status. In his stead, Boston turned to Garrett Whitlock to make a start against the Blue Jays. It was actually Whitlock’s second start of the season; he had made a spot start for Rich Hill the week prior and made a third start yesterday against the Angels. In those three starts, he’s allowed just three runs while striking out 18 batters in 12 innings.
Whitlock’s first start in the major leagues was fantastic. He held the Rays to just a single hit in four innings while striking out seven. It took him just 48 pitches to carve through Tampa Bay’s lineup. In Toronto, he wasn’t as dominant, giving up one unearned run on four hits and two walks. He ended up laboring through just three innings, but threw 61 pitches, the most he’s thrown in a single game in the big leagues. Against the Angels, he struck out nine batters and allowed two hits including a two-run home run by Max Stassi. He was stretched out to 78 pitches on Wednesday evening and completed a strong five innings.
It’s a fascinating role change for Whitlock, who was arguably Boston’s best reliever in 2021. Last year, he put up a 1.96 ERA and a 2.84 FIP in 46 appearances out of the ‘pen with a phenomenal 4.76 strikeout-to-walk ratio. His success was all the more impressive given his path to the majors. Tommy John surgery and the canceled minor league season in 2020 had kept the former Yankees prospect off the mound since July of ’19. Because he was still rehabbing from his injury from the previous year, New York left him off their 40-man roster after the 2020 season in the hopes that he could sneak through without a recent scouting look, but Boston selected him in the Rule 5 draft. The Red Sox took a chance on his skills and minor league track record and found a gem. Read the rest of this entry »
Jo Adell remains a work-in-progress. Drafted 10th overall out of a Louisville high school in 2017, the outfielder was rated the No. 1 prospect in the Los Angeles Angels system following his first full professional season, and he was just 21 years old when he made his major league debut in 2020 (he entered that season ranked fourth overall). The fast track hasn’t gone as smoothly as the Halos had hoped.
Adell scuffled during an extended COVID-year cameo, and last season he slashed a barely-scratching-the-surface-of-his-potential .246/.295/.408 following an August promotion. The current campaign has already featured a demotion. Unable to establish himself in a crowded Angels outfield, Adell — with a 95 wRC+ accompanying a ceiling that remains tantalizingly high — was sent down to Triple-A Salt Lake on Tuesday, with regular playing time a primary goal.
In the latest installment of our Talks Hitting series, Adell discussed the art and science of his mechanics and approach.
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David Laurila: Let’s start with a question I’ve begun some of my previous interviews with. Do you view hitting as more of an art, or more of a science?
Jo Adell: “A little of both. It’s an art in that everyone has their own way of doing it, their own style. There’s a little bit of science in the mix, with trying to figure out the best ways to attack certain guys. The approaches. So, I’d say art, physically — how you produce your swing, whether you’re a leg kick guy, a toe tap guy, or step forward guy — and then your game approach is the science.” Read the rest of this entry »
At FanGraphs, our headline WAR number for pitchers is based on FIP. Because of that, and because people enjoy debating and arguing, there’s a yearly refrain that you’ve probably heard. “FanGraphs pitching WAR only considers (X)% of what a pitcher does, how can that be used for value?” No one would dispute that year-one FIP does a better job of estimating year-two ERA than ERA does – or at least, not many people would – but the discussion around whether FIP does a good job of assigning year-one value is alive and well.
One reason for this view is pretty obvious. FIP considers home runs, strikeouts, walks, and hit batters to estimate pitcher production on an ERA scale. Our WAR does some fancy stuff in the background – it treats infield fly balls, which virtually never fall for hits, as strikeouts, and it adjusts for park and league. In the end, though, it’s estimating pitcher value using just three (well, actually four — HBPs always draw the short straw) outcomes. There are a lot of other outcomes in baseball!
In 2021, roughly 39% of plate appearances ended in a homer, strikeout, walk, hit batter, or infield pop up. One thing you could think, in recognition of that fact, is that FIP-based WAR doesn’t consider enough of a pitcher’s production. You wouldn’t use 40% of a hitter’s plate appearances to calculate their WAR, so why do it for pitchers? But that doesn’t actually make sense, as David Appelman pointed out to me recently. Assuming “average results on balls in play” is actually going to be pretty close for every pitcher, by definition. Read the rest of this entry »
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about a Madison Bumgarner ejection, players having to be held back, and sensual sticky-stuff inspections, the historically slow start of the Reds and Joey Votto’s response to a FanGraphs article about his season-opening slump, and a study on which teams improve pitchers. Then (24:10) they discuss how John T. Brush of the 1889 Indianapolis Hoosiers discovered the “times through the order” penalty, implemented midgame pitching changes, and was forced to abandon the tactic, as an object lesson in how change happens (or doesn’t happen) in MLB and beyond. Finally (53:10) they provide a potpourri of Stat Blasts on pitchers with a higher ERA+ than sum of batters faced, Kyle Schwarber and the best offensive performance by a player on the losing end of a no-hitter, Juan Soto and players who drive only themselves in, the highest-scoring game where every run scored on an out, the winning streak of Max Scherzer’s teams, “hitting your weight,” and home-run rates by day of the week, capped off by a cold call (1:11:10) to 95-year-old former major leaguer (and Stat Blast subject) Charlie Maxwell, who discusses learning from, throwing batting practice to, and being blocked by Ted Williams, hitting a pinch-hit grand slam off of Satchel Paige, helping the Tigers win more often when he was in the lineup, being clutch, hitting homers on Sundays, his many nicknames, how baseball has evolved since his playing days, and more.
Audio intro: AC/DC, “Hold Me Back” Audio outro: Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Charlie”
Last fall, the Braves won a championship with an outfield that bore no resemblance to the one that they used for the first half of the 2021 season, as circumstances required president of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos to perform an on-the-fly remake that yielded impressive results. In fact, two of the four outfielders he acquired in trade in July, Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler, wound up winning MVP honors in the postseason, the former in the NLCS against the Dodges and the latter in the World Series against the Astros. Yet even with two of the principals whose absences necessitated that makeover — Ronald Acuña Jr. and Marcell Ozuna — back in action, this year’s outfield has been a major weakness for a team that has stumbled to an 11-15 start.
We’re still in small-sample territory to be sure — particularly with regards to the individual performances — but through Wednesday, Braves outfielders have hit a combined .191/.261/.331 for a 72 wRC+ in that role, the fifth-lowest mark in the majors. Worse, the team has dipped into the same player pool to cover its designated hitter spot, and they’ve done more sinking than swimming, hitting .171/.235/.226 for a 36 wRC+, the majors’ third-lowest mark. That lack of production has weighed down the team’s entire offense, which ranks 12th in the NL at 3.77 runs per game. Not to be outdone on the other side of the ball, Atlanta’s outfield is tied for last in the majors in both UZR (-6.3) and DRS (-7), though here I’ll remind everyone not to get overly-invested in four week’s worth of defensive metrics; both the outfield and DH spots are second-to-last in the majors in WAR, with -0.8 and -0.9, respectively. In Tuesday’s doubleheader loss to the Mets, their outfielders and DHs went a combined 4-for-28, though Travis Demeritte did drive in their only run that wasn’t accounted for by Matt Olson’s three-run homer, and Acuña collected one of their two extra-base hits outside of Olson’s pair. Read the rest of this entry »
I just returned from a 10-day trip to Florida that began in the Tampa area, progressed through the southwest part of the state, and ended in Jupiter and West Palm Beach. During the trip, I saw a mix of extended spring training, Florida State League and amateur baseball, though there were times when I passed on the latter in order to see more games. For instance, the first morning I woke up in the Tampa area I could have headed north to Gainesville for part of the University of Tennessee at Florida series, but that would have meant driving five hours round trip and giving up an extended/FSL double up on at least one of those days, and probably two of them.
Instead I stayed in town and saw five games during my first three days away. I spent my first morning at Blue Jays extended spring training watching them play the Tigers. While a few guys from Detroit’s extended group are mentioned on the Tigers prospect list (the younger Wilmer Fenelon, Iverson Leonardo, J.D. McLaughlin), the lone new player who I’d like to call attention to is switch-hitting SS/3B Abel Bastidas, who won’t turn 19 until November. Bastidas has a well-composed 6-foot-2 frame, and he showed some pretty advanced pitch recognition in just a few at-bats, making a mid-flight adjustment to a couple of offspeed pitches, showing at least average bat speed, and laying down average run times. I didn’t see enough defensively to have a real opinion about Bastidas’ ability to play shortstop, but this is a well-rounded, projectable, switch-hitting infielder who everyone should be keyed-in on during the extended/Complex League period.
Eric Pardinho started the game for Toronto and sat 90-91 mph with below-average secondary stuff. It’s nice that he’s healthy and pitching but it’s fine to move on from considering him a prospect at this point. Similarly (I’m getting the bad news out of the way here), I left Florida highly skeptical of shortstop Manuel Beltre, who signed with Toronto for $2.35 million in 2021. Lauded for his drive and grit, there isn’t much in the way of tools here. Read the rest of this entry »
Bob Melvin is more than a little familiar with curveballs. Now in his 19th season at the helm of a big-league club, the 60-year-old San Diego Padres manager logged over 2,000 plate appearances and was behind the dish for more than 4,600 innings during his playing career. Seeing action with seven different teams from 1985 to ’94, he caught numerous hurlers whose repertoires included plus benders.
Which pitchers have featured the most-impressive curveballs Melvin caught, attempted to hit, and that he’s viewed from his vantage point in the dugout? Moreover, how do the shapes and velocities of present-day curveballs compare to those of his playing days? Melvin did his best to answer those questions when the Padres visited Pittsburgh’s PNC Park over the weekend.
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David Laurila: Who had the best curveball you caught?
Bob Melvin: “I caught many guys with good curveballs, but none were better than Gregg Olson’s. I caught him a lot, and there were times you could literally hear it spinning coming to the plate. It was as 12–6 of a curveball that you could possibly see. He was able to throw it up top if he needed to, for a strike, but the big thing for him was the chase. Nowadays, you’re seeing a little different… a little tighter breaking ball, sometimes at the top of the zone by design. That’s one that’s really tough to lay off, especially if you’re trying to lay off the the high fastball.
“There are certain guys now that pitch strictly north-south. You see the catcher right in the middle of the plate. It’s a high fastball at the top of the zone, and then it’s either a curveball where they’re trying to nip the top or one where they’re trying to get the chase. It’s maybe a little different than back in the day, where there were more sweepers and everything was more down in the zone, unless it was for a first-pitch strike. If you look at Pierce Johnson, with us, his curveball is one of those that you think is going to break a little bit more, but it kind of stays at the top of the zone and you end up taking it for a strike.” Read the rest of this entry »
Forced to squeeze their roster down to a 26-man limit on Monday, the Mets decided to say goodbye to veteran second baseman Robinson Canó, designating him and the two years left on his contract for assignment. Canó, who will turn 40 this year, struggled greatly in 12 games in 2021, going 8-for-41 with just a single extra-base hit, a solo homer off of Zach Davies. While he could theoretically be claimed on waivers before being released, any team adding him by this route would commit to the $40 million still owed him through 2023, which is, let’s just say, unlikely to happen.
The decisions both to play Canó and to cut him this year were surprisingly easy. He did play very well the last time we saw him, in the COVID-shortened 2020 season, hitting .316/.352/.544 with 10 homers for a 142 wRC+ and 1.3 WAR in just 49 games. The problem is that the last time we saw him was 2020 thanks to a PED suspension that November, his second positive steroid test under MLB’s drug-testing regimen and one that cost him the entire ’21 campaign.
I wasn’t really worried about the suspension itself; I’ve spent the last decade trying to find some kind of discernible pattern, short- or long-term, of over- or under-performance for the group of players busted for PED use and have yet to find anything actually useful. But what did worry me was the missed time coming on the back of an artificially short season for a 39-year-old player playing a premium defensive position. While Canó was quite good in 2020, his 2019 season was by far his worst season in a long time.
While I think it made perfect sense for the Mets to open the season with Canó and see what he had left, there was no particular reason for them to give him a very long leash. Jeff McNeil is playing well, and the team should roll with him starting most games at second. And with the need to cut the roster from 28 to 26 players, who would have been a better idea to cut? Luis Guillorme has been a rock-solid role player during the last few years, and even if he were struggling, he’s the backup shortstop. Dominic Smith hasn’t had a great start, but he’s contributed more than Canó has. Optioning Tylor Megill or Drew Smith would have have been completely absurd.
Mets owner Steve Cohen certainly ought to know a sunk cost when he sees one, and there’s no psychological need to salvage the Canó trade, as it was something this régime inherited from the Wilpons and former general manager Brodie Van Wagenen, not a transaction that they masterminded. The Mets expect to contend this year and are in first place by three games, so this is a team that ought to be more interested in certainty rather than chasing the chance that Canó turns things around.
Is Canó done? I wouldn’t necessarily shovel that last bit of dirt onto his career quite that quickly. Neither ZiPS (.254/.298/.393) nor Steamer (.249/.298/.385) are all that optimistic, but the margin of error here is absolutely huge. For a team that’s actually desperate at second base or a lousy one that can afford to absorb such a risky player, there’s still an argument for Canó as an addition to the roster. It wouldn’t be preposterous for the White Sox, for example, to take a look given that the combination of Leury García and Josh Harrison has been positively dreadful at second.
Whether or not Canó bounces back to close out his 10-year, $216 million contract, there’s no denying that his career is coming to an end. And overall, it’s a sad one, particularly given the friendly rivalry between Canó and another of the great second basemen of that era: Dustin Pedroia. Which player was the better second baseman was a hotly debated topic a decade ago and a fun part of the usual Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. While I don’t want to name any names, a couple of huge fans I know on Twitter spent a long time arguing that question, frequently roping me in the conversation to settle a particular aspect of the argument.
It would have been crazy to say in 2012, but I assume now that neither will make the Hall of Fame. Knee injuries basically ended Pedroia’s career at age 33, and his counting numbers are likely too light for him to get 75% of Hall voters on his side. Canó’s numbers are closer, but he’s unlikely to reach 3,000 hits. More importantly, if the first PED suspension didn’t slam the door shut in Cooperstown, the second one certainly did. While I intend to check Canó’s box someday, I’m confident I’m in the minority.
ZiPS Career Projection, Before 2017
Player
BA
OBP
SLG
AB
R
H
2B
3B
HR
RBI
BB
SB
OPS+
WAR
Robinson Canó
.296
.343
.477
10774
1515
3188
642
43
406
1581
710
64
121
64.7
Dustin Pedroia
.295
.356
.426
8314
1190
2449
512
20
180
939
785
160
108
56.9
Is Robinson Canó done? Maybe, maybe not. The Mets rightly decided that they didn’t want to be the ones who needed to find out the answer to that question.
Who’s the best reliever in baseball? There are multiple ways to go about answering that question. You could pick the guy with the lowest projected ERA; that’s Josh Hader, with Emmanuel Clase, Liam Hendriks, and Taylor Rogers close behind. You could pick the guy with the best reputation; I’d go with Hendriks or Hader, but if you’re a giant Raisel Iglesias or Aroldis Chapman fan, I wouldn’t hold it against you.
If you want to look at what’s happening on the field, though, the best reliever in baseball is clearly Ryan Helsley. It’s not “probably Ryan Helsley.” It’s not “Ryan Helsley is in the conversation.” It’s just Ryan Helsley. He’s been absolutely dominant to start the year, so dominant that I’m not sure I have the right words for it.
If you follow the NL Central, you’ve surely heard of Helsley. He’s been in the majors for parts of the last four seasons as a flamethrowing reliever, and that part isn’t changing. He topped out at 103 mph this weekend, the kind of heat that makes Pitching Ninja sprint to his computer and search for the right emoji (he used fire, if you’re keeping score at home). But that pitch reduces Helsley’s performance to “he throws hard sometimes,” which undersells him to a comical extent. Read the rest of this entry »
Dan Szymborski
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