Notes
Kirby’s fastball sat 96-98 mph on Wednesday night, but more noteworthy was how little he threw it. He leaned much more heavily on his slider, curveball, and changeup, all of which flashed above average throughout the evening.
His increased use of those secondaries resulted in him throwing more balls than is typical of the control-specialist, but while that may have inflated his pitch count, he still kept it in check, and didn’t issue any free passes. More often than not, Kirby hit his spots and he missed bats with every offering, retiring the last 12 batters he faced in order. Read the rest of this entry »
The Dodgers couldn’t have asked for much more from Clayton Kershaw than what he gave them in his first start of the 2022 season, and so they didn’t. Faced with the unenviable choice of letting the future Hall of Famer push himself into the red in pursuit of a perfect game — under frigid conditions in Minnesota, no less — or take a more prudent course with a 34-year-old hurler whose last regular-season appearance placed his future in doubt, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts went against all sentimentality. He pulled Kershaw after seven spotless innings and 80 pitches, a move that the pitcher later called “the right choice,” and the Dodgers settled for a combined one-hitter and a 7-0 victory at Target Field.
For those seven glorious innings, it felt as though the three-time Cy Young winner had turned back the clock. Kershaw struck out 13 of the 21 batters he faced, generating 20 swings and misses, including 17 (out of 27 swings) with his slider. He added another 13 called strikes, including four with the slider and seven with his four-seam fastball, which averaged a modest 90.6 mph, 0.7 mph below last year’s mark. His 41% CSW% for the day was a mark he surpassed only twice last year, first with a 44% CSW% in his 13-strikeout June 27 outing against the Cubs — his last unfettered start of the season, as he landed on the injured list with inflammation in his left forearm following a four-inning start on July 3 — and then a 42% CSW in his September 19 start against the Diamondbacks, the best outing of his abbreviated September. Read the rest of this entry »
Hagen Danner has had a unique ride in our rankings. The 2017 second-round draft pick was No. 31 on our 2019 Toronto Blue Jays Top Prospects list, and after falling off completely in 2020 and ’21, he’s now a helium-filled No.14 on our ’22 edition. A position change has fueled the ascent; previously a catcher, Danner was moved to the mound in the months preceding the 2020 shutdown.
Last season saw the 23-year-old right-hander emerge as a shutdown reliever. Pitching against professional hitters for the first time, Danner logged a 2.02 ERA with 42 strikeouts in 35.2 innings with High-A Vancouver. Moreover, those numbers came courtesy of a power arsenal that has prompted our own Eric Longenhagen to proclaim that the Huntington Beach High School product is “on the fast track.”
Danner discussed his conversion — which wasn’t exactly a conversion — and the heater/slutter/curveball combination that he takes with him to the mound, following a spring-training outing against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He proceeded to break camp with the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats.
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David Laurila: You were a two-way player in high school. How much did you actually understand pitching at that time?
Hagen Danner: “A lot. It was my main position until senior year, at which time I decided to just swing the bat. That allowed me to get drafted as a hitter and let me try to live out my dream of being a hitter in the big leagues. When that wasn’t going right, it was an easy transition.”
Laurila: You were drafted as a catcher. Why that position?
Danner: “It was what I played in high school when I wasn’t pitching, although I also was a third baseman. I guess it was better [draft-wise] to be as a power-hitting catcher. It helped being able to play defense behind the plate, too.”
Laurila: Do you feel that you had potential as a hitter? There was a lot of swing-and-miss to your game, but you did have a [.409] OBP as a 19-year-old in rookie ball. Read the rest of this entry »
Three days ago, Jesús Luzardo was a fun bounceback candidate. As a minor leaguer, he was one of the best prospects in the game, with an explosive fastball, a spectacular array of secondaries, and plus command. In his first two seasons of big league experience, that continued; he missed bats, walked only 6.8% of his opponents, and posted an ERA in the upper threes. But in 2021, his command collapsed, and with it his untouchable status in Oakland. In the midst of a 6.61 ERA season with an 11% walk rate, the A’s shipped him off to Miami in exchange for Starling Marte.
It’s not three days ago anymore. Now, after a dominant start, I’m considering a different question: is Luzardo Miami’s best pitcher? Is he one of the best pitchers in baseball, full stop? That’s probably hyperbole, but again: Luzardo was one of the best pitching prospects in baseball only a handful of years ago. Let’s give his remarkable turnaround the consideration it deserves, and see if we can figure out what changes he’s made to unlock this new level of performance while we’re at it.
First things first: has Luzardo made any changes to his delivery? To figure this out with my remedial understanding of pitching mechanics, I watched one fastball from his 2021 season and one fastball from his 2022 debut over and over (and over and over and over) again. Here are the clips in question. First, a called strike last April:
Next, a foul tip from Tuesday:
I’m hardly an expert here, but I noticed several differences. First, he’s more to the third-base side of the rubber. Second, at the peak of his lead leg’s lift, his glove position is meaningfully higher. Take a look at the two side-by-side and it’s somewhat obvious, even if the different aspect angles from the two broadcasts keep you from making a straight comparison:
So what exactly is a bust? I don’t take it to mean that a player is awful or has no value. For me, a bust is a player who will step down a tier in performance or who is in a down cycle and has passed the window to get back to what they used to be. None of the players involved are literally without value, and some of them are still really good. But they’re all players I think will be well below their best, usually in a manner that makes me sad as a baseball fan.
Before getting to the 2022 candidates, here are my ’21 bust choices and how they performed:
Corey Kluber: 3.83 ERA, 3.85 FIP, 1.5 WAR in 80 IP
Nobody really shone here, but by the same token, nobody was legendarily awful (I had expected Lester to go down that route and he didn’t really). We obviously didn’t get a ton of Kluber, but he was definitely much more effective than I expected. My concern with May was that he was still rather awkward at punching out batters, despite the explosiveness of his stuff, so I was happy that he spent April proving me very wrong about where he was as a pitcher — then very unhappy as he tore his UCL in early May and required Tommy John surgery.
As a reminder, I selected all of these players by Opening Day, so there’s no knowledge of anything that happened after Opening Day. It would have been really awkward if someone on my list had surprise Tommy John surgery this week! Read the rest of this entry »
The Colorado Rockies are projected to be gobsmackingly bad in 2022. Look no further than the summary of this season’s positional power rankings: They have three positions that rank 30th and six below 20th, which works out to a cumulative last-place finish. Most of it traces back to a lack of certifiable talent on Colorado’s roster. But some of it, inevitably, is a function of Coors Field. Today, I will mainly focus on the fact that at home, the Rockies allow lots and lots of runs. The common thinking is that this is because Coors is an environment conducive to home runs. While true, there’s another factor that arguably matters more. Check out this graph:
When a fly ball or line drive is hit at Coors, the resulting .459 BABIP has led all of major league baseball by a laughably wide margin for the past few years. The gap between the Rockies in first place and the second-place Red Sox (.421) is equal to that between second place and the 15th-place Orioles (.393). If you’re wondering why, the outfield at Coors is absolutely enormous, so much so that it’s hard to believe just three men patrol it. The thin air helps the ball travel, but crucially, there’s also a lot of space for it to land. It’s a two-part mechanism that captures why offense can get out of control in the Rockies’ home park. Read the rest of this entry »
When the Phillies signed Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos to free agentdeals within a three-day span in March, there were more than a few giggles about the moves’ effect on what already figured to be a shaky team defense. Monday night provided ample demonstration of those concerns, though neither of those two new sluggers figured in the mishaps. Instead, the misadventures of third baseman Alec Bohm were in the spotlight, drawing attention to an area that might be of even greater concern.
The 25-year-old Bohm, who has struggled mightily at the hot corner during his brief major league career, was charged with throwing errors on three separate plays in the first three innings of Monday’s game, though the runs that scored in the wake of the first one were earned. He later found a measure of redemption by sparking a five-run rally in the team’s come-from-behind win over the Mets.
In the first inning, after Brandon Nimmo led off with a single, Starling Marte hit a comebacker that deflected off pitcher Ranger Suárez and over to Bohm, who made an awkward, sidearmed throw on a ball that he should have just kept in his pocket. The throw went into foul territory about 15 feet up the right field line as Marte took second and Nimmo third; while Bohm fielded grounders on the next two batters cleanly, Nimmo scored, and Marte soon did as well as part of a three-run inning. Read the rest of this entry »
With Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer fronting their rotation, the Mets were theoretically spoiled for choices when picking an Opening Day starter. Or at least, they would have been if deGrom hadn’t been hurt and Scherzer hadn’t picked up a few minor injuries of his own during the spring, throwing off his schedule a bit. Of course, New York also traded for Chris Bassitt during the offseason; he was the Oakland A’s Opening Day starter in 2021. They’ve also got a healthy Carlos Carrasco, who might have taken on the role during his Cleveland tenure were it not for Corey Kluber. Thus, it was rather surprising to see Tylor Megill take the mound last Thursday night.
While the start was certainly an honor for Megill, his throwing schedule also lined up most closely with the occasion. “It fit where he was. Not necessarily his pitch count, but his work load and experience factor,” said manager Buck Showalter after picking him. It’s a fun bit of trivia for the history books, but after the pre-game pomp and circumstance, Megill’s performance met the moment. He dazzled over five innings of work, holding the Nationals scoreless, allowing just three baserunners and striking out six. The biggest revelation of the evening was a fastball that was suddenly sitting 96 mph and that touched 99 mph, no doubt aided by the adrenaline of the first inning. In his second start of the season yesterday, Megill held the Phillies scoreless over 5.1 innings, allowing just three baserunners and striking out five. It’s just 10 innings and 144 pitches, but it certainly seems as though Megill’s entire arsenal — and not just his heater — has taken a step forward this year.
An eighth round pick in 2018 out of Arizona, Megill peaked at 25th on the 2021 Mets prospect list. His fastball sat in the low-90s in college and in his first taste of pro ball. After the cancelled 2020 minor league season, he showed up to spring training last year regularly throwing 94 mph, and that velocity increase stuck when he made his major league debut in late June. Now his fastball is up another tick and a half. Read the rest of this entry »
This season, Eric and Tess Taruskin will each have a minor league roundup post run during the week, with the earlier post recapping some of the weekend’s action. Those posts will typically run Monday or Tuesday (since Monday is widely an off day for the minors), though they will occasionally be featured later in the week, as Eric’s notes are here.
Notes
Wow! Encarnacion-Strand ended up at the bottom of our Twins list because we think he’s destined for first base and has more swing-and-miss going on than we’re comfortable with at that position. After transferring from Yavapai to Oklahoma State, he only struck out in about 19% of the plate appearances during his lone Division-I season, which is less than I’d have guessed based on my in-person notes on his contact ability. He certainly has big power, though. The universal DH helps Encarnacion-Strand’s cause since there are more 1B/DH jobs in the majors now, and teams are more open to platooning there and/or carrying a positionless bopper on their bench. Read the rest of this entry »
Dan Szymborski
