Mitch White brought a new-ish slider to Toronto when the Blue Jays acquired him at this year’s trade deadline. He also brought a nerdy approach to pitching. That should come as no surprise. The 27-year-old right-hander had pitched in the Los Angeles Dodgers system since being selected in the second round of the 2016 draft out of Santa Clara University.

White also had a big-league resume when he changed organizations. Having debuted with the Dodgers in August of 2020’s COVID-truncated campaign, he had 105-and-two-thirds innings under his belt when the four-player swap occurred. Since coming to Toronto, White has a 5.89 ERA over four starts.

White discussed his new and old sliders, and the blister issues that have dogged his career, when the Blue Jays visited Fenway Park last week.

———

On his path to the big leagues and dealing with blisters:
“A lot of it was staying healthy. I’ve had a few things go on every year, whether it was blisters or some back stuff. I had a broken toe at one point. Right now, I have this little guy [blister]. The slider really puts a lot of pressure there because I’m trying to get to the side of the ball and spin it, and for whatever reason, I guess my skin is soft. I’ve had to learn how to manage that stuff in between outings. Read the rest of this entry »

Since I’m an obnoxiously determined Devil’s advocate, one of my favorite uses of data is tackling conventional wisdom. For example, one such bit of wisdom that always bugs me is when pundits insist that the best teams are the ones that win close games. In fact, the opposite is true. The most predictive run differential comes in blowouts — the good teams are the ones that are more likely to humiliate their opponents, not squeeze out a close one. This time of year, you start to see a lot of analysis asserting that X team is definitely blessed or doomed come playoff time because of some randomly chosen factor Y. We could do a column a day on these and still have dozens of unwritten pieces by the time the actual playoffs roll around, but let’s focus on a few specific ones, concentrating on who good teams beat rather than how many games they win.

First off, do regular season head-to-head records matter in the playoffs? Since the start of divisional play in 1969, teams that face each other in the playoffs have frequently met in the regular season. Interleague play added eventual World Series matchups to the regular season, and starting in 2023, every playoff matchup will have already occurred during the regular season. Given the sample size of playoff series, if we construct a simple model of series winning percentage that only consists of a team’s regular season winning percentage and its winning percentage in head-to-head matchups, the model horribly inaccurate, with an r-squared of 0.0886 and a mean absolute error of 275 points of winning percentage.

But including head-to-head winning percentage doesn’t really even have a marginal influence on the coin flip; without the head-to-head matchups, the model’s MAE increases to 276 points of winning percentage. Now, a head-to-head record may imply something about a team’s overall strength that isn’t captured in its overall record, but rather than pick up a small sample implication, we can use strength of schedule directly, which does help the model a tiny bit (playoff series are always going to be very uncertain unless we move to best-of-75 series or something wacky). Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

While Francisco Lindor is having an MVP-caliber season — that is, one that would not be out of place given historical precedents and that belongs in the discussion of this year’s potential honorees — he’s not the leading candidate for National League hardware. Particularly after what he’s done in August as the Cardinals have pulled away with the NL Central lead, Paul Goldschmidt must be considered the favorite, as he not only leads the NL in all three slash stats (and wRC+), but he has a shot at winning the league’s Triple Crown.

The 34-year-old Goldschmidt finished the weekend hitting .338/.421/.639 with 33 home runs, 105 RBI, a 194 wRC+, and 6.9 WAR. All of those figures lead the Senior Circuit except for his homers, and he’s tied for the RBI lead. Here’s how those numbers stack up versus other NL players:

Read the rest of this entry »

With the playoff pictures in both leagues nearly settled with a month left to play, big matchups between the best teams lose a little meaning without the high stakes of a close pennant race hanging in the balance. Still, there are a few competitive divisions, and the Wild Card race in both leagues should be exciting down to the end of the season.

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.

Despite nine wins over their last 13 games, the Dodgers have slowed down just a touch, though they’re still on pace for 113 wins this year, or a .698 winning percentage. History awaits if they can crest the .700 mark: Only the 1998 Yankees and 2001 Mariners have finished a full 162-game season with a winning percentage that high or better. After wrapping up their series with the Marlins on Monday, they have a tough stretch of games ahead of them: three in New York against the Mets and then six games against the Padres split up by a three-game set against the Giants. If they can get through this part of their schedule at their current pace, they’ll have a good shot of becoming the third team ever to finish with 114 wins or more.

Even though they just dropped two of three to the Orioles over the weekend, the Astros have elevated themselves over all the other teams in the American League. Houston has played extremely well all season long and has a soft schedule on the docket, with six straight series against teams with records below .500. Of some concern: the Astros scored just four runs total against Baltimore. Justin Verlander, the favorite to win the AL Cy Young award, was also forced to exit his start on Sunday with a calf injury. The offensive woes should sort themselves out, but losing Verlander for an extended period of time would be a serious blow. Read the rest of this entry »

In the top of the fourth inning of Saturday’s Braves-Cardinals tilt, Atlanta struck for four runs, breaking a scoreless tie and setting the team up in an enviable position. Leading off the bottom of the inning, St. Louis’ Tyler O’Neill walked on four straight pitches against Charlie Morton. That walk cost the Braves; two batters later, Andrew Knizner popped a two-run homer that brought the Cardinals within two runs.

On the broadcast, John Smoltz was livid even before the home run. “The last thing you want to do is walk the leadoff hitter after the team gave you four runs…. You don’t care if he hits a 3–1 pitch for a homer. Just don’t walk him.” He said that even before O’Neill walked, and emphasized the point throughout the inning.

Aaron Goldsmith, handling play-by-play, asked Smoltz to elaborate. “You’re not being facetious, you actually mean that? You’d rather have a run on the board than a runner at first base?” Smoltz stuck to his guns, said he preferred the homer to the walk, and that was that.

Here’s a bit of an upset: I understood what Smoltz was talking about. In fact, I think that if you give him a little leeway, he might have a point. Sure, it’s fun to point at a statement like that and laugh. It’s absurd on its face. The worst-case outcome of a walk is a run scoring. The only outcome of a solo home run is a run scoring. There’s just no way a rational observer could come to any other conclusion.

That said: I don’t think that’s what Smoltz meant. Consider this: no major league pitcher has ever thrown a pitch that they knew with certainty would turn into a home run when it left their hand. That’s just not how baseball works. Position players lob plenty of objectively terrible pitchers that don’t leave the yard every time they handle mop-up duty. The meatiest meatball Morton could throw is far from a certain home run. If we think a little more about process, and a little less about outcomes, this silly debate takes on new light. Read the rest of this entry »

Friday’s interview with Michael Harris II focused on his career path, the 21-year-old Atlanta Braves rookie having excelled as a multiple-sport athlete while growing up in Stockbridge, Georgia. Moreover, he’d been a two-way player whom many scouts preferred as a pitcher. While baseball and outfielder-only are proving to be prudent choices, he had options along the way.

Jordan Romano’s path shares some similarities with Harris’s. Not only was the Toronto Blue Jays closer a multi-sport athlete in his formative years, he originally excelled as a position player. That he became a pitcher was circumstantial. Choosing baseball was a matter of passion.

“Being Canadian, I played a lot of hockey in high school,”said Romano, who grew up a Toronto Maple Leafs fan in Markham, Ontario. “I also played a little basketball and was pretty decent at volleyball. But with baseball, you kind of had to drag me off the field, even in practice. My parents wanted me to play a bunch of different sports, and while I really enjoyed hockey — I still do — I didn’t have the passion for it that I did for baseball.”

Romano never considered himself NHL material, but he does feel he had the potential to play collegiately, or in juniors, had he stuck with it. The decision to forgo that possibility came at age 17, and while it shaped his future, it didn’t end his time on the ice. Romano kept lacing up the skates for another year. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Julio Rodríguez‘s complex, long-term extension with the Mariners, which wild card contenders Meg is most worried about as a Mariners fan, George Kirby’s game-starting strike streak and the nature of a strike, the new CBA’s impact on midseason callups, and Bryce Harper’s return, follow up on MLB players playing KBO players, “defended” vs. “defensed,” Munetaka Murakami’s homers, and Yankee Stadium’s design, share a Past Blast (43:17) from 1895, and reflect on the 20th anniversary of the first MLB game stream. Then (54:40) they talk to listener and broadcast designer/director Chris Hanel about his research into the pitch-speed flames and score bugs on baseball broadcasts, the biggest score bug mistakes and disputes, how score bugs have evolved, the best and worst score bugs, the future of score bugs, and more.

Audio intro: The Apples in Stereo, “Stream Running Over”
Audio interstitial: Bobbie Gentry, “Bugs”
Audio outro: Popsicle, “Join My Stream”

Link to Passan’s extension article
Link to Passan’s Twitter thread
Link to MLBTR on the extension
Link to Dan S. on the extension
Link to Stathead on 20/20 players
Link to Kirby strike-record data
Link to Stowers walk-off video
Link to Elias fact tweet
Link to CBA incentive details
Link to BP on the Cavalli callup
Link to tweet about Henderson
Link to info on the “Korea Series”
Link to Mark Simon on Walker
Link to Zach Buchanan on Walker
Link to Murakami tweet
Link to defended/defensed discussion
Link to story about streaming anniversary
Link to 2002 streaming screenshot
Link to Richard Hershberger’s Strike Four
Link to 1895 story source
Link to Sam on the flames
Link to Chris’s flames grid
Link to Chris’s graphics sheet
Link to NPB graphics screenshot
Link to NPB graphics screenshot 2
Link to story on ESPN NFL graphics change
Link to MLB survey screenshot thread
Link to Chris’s score bug account
Link to Chris’s thread with more info
Link to Chris’s baseball account
Link to Chris’s company

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It’ll still be a few months before we see whether Julio Rodríguez wins the American League Rookie of the Year award, but today we got a glimpse of baseball 15 years into the future. As reported by MLB.com’s Jesse Sanchez and ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the Seattle Mariners and Rodríguez have come to terms on a huge long-term contract extension, one that would run to the late 2030s.

Passan ran down the details of the deal, and it’s a complicated one.

THREAD: There’s a lot to digest on Julio Rodríguez’s extension with Seattle, per ESPN sources. The deal could be for 8, 13, 16 or 18 years. It guarantees Rodriguez $210 million. If it maxes out, it will be the largest ever: $470 million. The details are important. Here they are.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 26, 2022

Read the rest of this entry »

To these eyes and those of others, the novelty of position players pitching in blowouts has worn off, but even so, the phenomenon has taken on a new twist. Whereas it has become almost routine for a team that’s getting pasted to call upon a reserve position player to close things out rather than waste a real pitcher, this season we’ve seen an unprecedented number of position players finishing games for the teams that are doing the pasting. In fact, earlier this week we saw a team do so on back-to-back nights, when Dodgers infielder Hanser Alberto nailed down 10-1 and 12-6 victories over the Brewers on Tuesday and Wednesday. Talk about adding insult to injury.

The 29-year-old Alberto is a light-hitting utilityman who during a seven-year career with four teams has played every position but catcher and center field. This year, he’s hitting .246/.258/.373 with two homers in 128 PA for the majors’ most dominant team, becoming something of a fan favorite for his role in keeping the Dodgers loose with his dugout dancing, towel-waving, and general good vibes-spreading.

Hanser Alberto might be my new favorite player??? pic.twitter.com/3Aa3kXkZzb

— Blake Harris (@BlakeHHarris) April 20, 2022

This is hilarious pic.twitter.com/R9STiFWCOv

— kimberly ? (@kimballzzzzz) August 24, 2022

Alberto came to the Dodgers with a smidgen of mound work on his resumé. He made his first pitching appearance with the Orioles on April 7, 2019, allowing two runs in the ninth inning of a game they lost to the Yankees 15-3; Austin Romine took him deep. He pitched again on April 20 of last year with the Royals; with the Rays ahead 14-7, he relieved a struggling Greg Holland and got the final out. Read the rest of this entry »