Stephen Ridings strikes an imposing figure on the mound. He also misses a lot of bats. Straddling the rubber at 6-foot-8, 225 pounds, the 26-year-old right-handed reliever is coming off a season where he recorded 42 strikeouts in 29 minor-league innings, and another seven in a five-inning cup of coffee with the New York Yankees. Moreover, he allowed just 20 hits and six walks in the 34 cumulative frames.

Drafted out of Division-III Haverford College by the Chicago Cubs in 2016 — the Yankees are his third organization — Ridings comes out of the bullpen with an attack-dog mindset.

“Right now, I’m the guy that wants to blow doors off,” explained Ridings, whom New York signed in January 2021 after he was released by the Kansas City Royals. “I’m trying to strike out as many guys as humanly possible.”

The 18% swinging strike rate that Eric Longenhagen noted when writing up Ridings for our 2022 Yankees Top Prospect list — the righty is No. 21 in those rankings — comes courtesy of three-pitch mix. A heater that sits mid-to-high 90s and tops out in triple digits is his bread-and-butter, and a slider he began throwing in spring training of last year is his best secondary. A knuckle-curve rounds out his repertoire. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Jacob deGrom’s latest injury, the White Sox-Dodgers trade involving Craig Kimbrel and AJ Pollock, umpires explaining replay reviews, “Home Run Derby X,” a lousy likeness of Derek Jeter, Yankees games on Amazon Prime and the continued splintering of baseball broadcasts, and an update about MLB’s official cerveza and official beer, then (39:43) bring on listener and Patreon supporter Stefan Lund to discuss his podcast-listening and baseball-loving origin stories and a confusing Shohei Ohtani reference on Billions and answer listener emails about the lack of captains in baseball, whether a reliever could still win a Cy Young or MVP award, how innings totals are displayed, what to call players who bat left-handed and throw right-handed, the Guardians’ new theme song, and how different baseball would be if the pitching rubber extended from foul line to foul line, plus a Stat Blast (1:41:51) about Albert Pujols, Oliver Marmol, and players who are older than their managers.

Audio intro: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, “Go Cry on Somebody Else’s Shoulder”
Audio interstitial: Girlpool, “Emily”
Audio outro: Colin Blunstone, “This is Your Captain Calling”

Link to MLBTR on Pollock and Kimbrel
Link to Ben Clemens on the CBA/CBT change
Link to La Russa quote
Link to umpires and replay story
Link to Home Run Derby X video
Link to Home Run Derby X explainer
Link to Sam on home run derby
Link to Jeter giveaway
Link to Jeter’s HoF plaque
Link to Ronaldo statue story
Link to fresco restoration story
Link to story about Yankees broadcasts
Link to Ohtani/Trout/Watt photo
Link to Bourcard Nesin on Twitter
Link to Liquid Assets podcast
Link to SBJ story on splitting sponsorships
Link to 2015 story on US/Canada MLB sponsors
Link to 2018 story on US/Canada MLB sponsors
Link to 0-9 Twins/Braves EW episode
Link to The Billions Companion on Doyle
Ben on Billions dialogue
Link to baseball captains wiki
Link to hockey captains wiki
Link to story about Belt being captain
Link to THT story on L/R players
Link to WSJ story on R/L players
Link to THT story on R/L players
Link to story about Guardians theme song
Link to “We Are Cleveland” song
Link to Twins fight song
Link to “Get Metsmerized!”
Link to manager/player-age Stat Blast data
Link to Stefan’s Radke article
Link to Sam on Radke
Link to Aaron Gleeman on Radke
Link to Russell on hitting and defense
Link to AP story about minor leaguers

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2:01	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! Welcome to the April 1 edition of my chat. This April fool is still recovering from having accidentally sent my mom’s birthday gift to my Brooklyn apartment instead of her Salt Lake City residence.

2:01	Jay Jaffe: In housekeeping news, my second entry in our Positional Power Rankings series went live this morning https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-positional-power-rankings-right-field…

2:02	Jay Jaffe: I also did first basemen https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2022-positional-power-rankings-first-base/. And before that I was visiting my folks and skiing (advance celebration for my mom’s 80th bday), which is why you haven’t seen much of me on the home page lately

2:03	Jay Jaffe: But… that’s about to change. I’ll cover the Pollock/Kimbrel trade for Monday — had to see it about 18 times before I was willing to concede it was real and not an April 1 conspiracy on the part of the industry’s newsbreakers.

2:04	Jay Jaffe: In other news, happy Jon Spencer and the Hitmakers release day to those celebrating! https://jonspencerthehitmakers.bandcamp.com/album/spencer-gets-it-lit

2:04	Jay Jaffe: And now, on with the show…

Read the rest of this entry »

Author’s note: Jacob deGrom was scratched from his scheduled start today after feeling tightness in his throwing shoulder. He will undergo an MRI. While that potential injury makes his availability for the start of the season murky, this article is about his spring start on March 27.

When you watch Jacob deGrom, he’ll make you question what you know about the fine art of pitching. Develop a mix of killer pitches to keep batters off balance? He has five excellent pitches, but he basically only uses two of them. Change speeds? He throws his fastball in a consistent band, his slider in a consistent band, and when he does deign to drop in a changeup, it matches his slider.

None of that is the most obviously extreme thing about deGrom, though. If you’ve paid attention through a few of his starts, you know what I’m talking about: he barely uses any of the plate. Home plate is 17 inches wide, and baseballs have a radius of roughly 1.5 inches. That means that pitchers have 18.5 inches of horizontal space to play with, from catching the edge on one side of the plate to catching it on the other. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Jay Jaffe rounded out the outfield with his look at right fielders. Now we conclude our rankings of the game’s position players with a deep dive on designated hitters.

As Meg Rowley did when she introduced this year’s positional power rankings, I’ll begin with a quick refresher: All 30 teams are ranked here based on the projected WAR from our Depth Charts, which is arrived at using a 50/50 blend of the ZiPS and Steamer projections and our manually maintained playing time estimates. In other words, the teams and players populating the bottom of this list aren’t there based on any one person’s opinion. You’re free to disagree, or even to yell, but doing so in this author’s direction would be misguided.

That said, this particular list is twice as long as it used to be. The National League — to the whole-hearted appreciation of some, and the consternation of others — has finally adopted the designated hitter. Five decades (minus one year) after the junior circuit introduced the rule, pitchers will no longer hit. Of course, Shohei Ohtani still will, but only because he can do something few pitchers in history have been capable of doing: swing the bat like a DH. Now, on to the rankings! Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday Jason Martinez and Jon Tayler previewed left and center field. Now we round out the outfield positions in right.

Last year was a banner one for right fielders. For starters, Bryce Harper and Juan Soto finished first and second in National League MVP voting, that after ranking first and third in the majors in wRC+, and finishing in a virtual tie for third in WAR. Aaron Judge and Kyle Tucker both ranked among the majors’ top seven hitters by wRC+ as well, with the former cracking the top 10 in WAR, too. Seven of the top 30 qualified hitters by wRC+ were right fielders, even with Mookie Betts grinding through a comparatively subpar season where he was beset by a bone spur in his hip and Ronald Acuña Jr. falling short of qualifying due to a torn ACL that ended his season in July, perhaps costing him the NL MVP award. Meanwhile, Nick Castellanos, who ranked 13th in the majors in wRC+, was one of seven position players to net a $100 million free agent contract this winter, though he’s bound for more DH and left field duty with the Phillies. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 968

This week on the podcast, Dan Szymborski and Ben Clemens go over their work on the 2022 positional power rankings.

Dan wrote about the league’s catchers, so the duo discuss Will Smith’s sneaky stardom, Yasmani Grandal’s wild 2021 stat line, and how the importance of framing makes Salvador Perez a controversial backstop. Meanwhile, Ben covered second and third base, so we also hear about where Luis Arraez fits in for the Twins (and their curious situation at third), the career arc of Gleyber Torres, and whether Ben thinks he would give Jose Altuve a Hall of Fame vote when the time comes. Finally, Ben shares his favorite video game of the year so far, and it probably isn’t the one you think.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximate 50 minute play time.)

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Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and Fox Sports national writer Pedro Moura discuss Pedro’s new book How to Beat a Broken Game: The Rise of the Dodgers in a League on the Brink, then (18:54) preview the 2022 season in the American League West, team by team.

Audio intro: Jim White, “Book of Angels”
Audio outro: Dire Straits, “Wild West End”

Link to Pedro’s book
Link to 2021 Gurriel story
Link to 2022 Gurriel story
Link to Ben on Ohtani
Link to Ken Rosenthal on the Angels
Link to Corey Brock on Gilbert
Link to Ken Rosenthal on Kelenic

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12:04

Dan Szymborski: Welcome to SzymChat! Now, we should have had baseball this week, but at least we’ll have it next Thursday instead of , say, nothing until 2023!

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Probalby some leftover pizza.

12:04

Dan Szymborski: Quite. There were already reasons to be worried

12:05

Dan Szymborski: And while spring training doesn’t mean a LOT, Rosenheck showed some years ago that it means a LITTLE of something

Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier today, Jason Martinez examined the state of left field. Now we turn our attention to those who roam center.

Center field is jam-packed with interesting depth charts. Magisterial superstars? We’ve got those — Mike Trout and Ronald Acuña Jr. feature prominently. Marvelous defenders? Byron Buxton is more than just that, but he certainly fits the bill, and Harrison Bader might be his equal with the glove. Exciting rookies? Julio Rodríguez and Riley Greene are both projected to play. Bounce-back candidates, 2021 breakouts who will be trying to prove it again, sketchy defenders who play the position anyway for want of better options — the center field landscape is truly diverse. Sure, Trout tops the list, and sure, the Rockies and Royals bring up the rear, but don’t judge a book by its front and back cover: this might be the most interesting collection of projections in this entire exercise. Read the rest of this entry »