Ask pretty much any major league hitter, and they’ll tell you that they earn their paycheck with runners in scoring position. A base hit means a run, and you have to score runs to win games. An out — particularly a strikeout — squanders an opportunity to score, and those come vanishingly rarely these days, what with every pitcher in baseball throwing 100 mph with a wipeout slider and all. It’s the highest-leverage spot you can hit in; succeed with runners in scoring position, and your team will probably win, but fail, and it’s going to be a long night.

As far as we can tell, success in those situations — runners in scoring position, high leverage, you name it — isn’t predictive of future success. But that doesn’t mean approach isn’t predictive of future approach, and as you might imagine, hitters behave differently when they can smell an RBI opportunity.

One easy way to conceptualize this change in approach is to think of the edges of the zone and the area just outside of the strike zone — the Shadow Zone, in Statcast parlance — as a good test of what a hitter wants to do. On pitches down the heart of the plate, swinging is a clear best choice. On pitches nowhere near the zone, taking is the only right choice. But pitches that could go either way? The best strategy depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.

With runners in scoring position and no one on first — in other words, a situation where a walk is far worse than a hit — major leaguers have swung at shadow zone pitches 56.4% of the time (in the last two years). On the whole, they’ve only swung 52.9% of the time at those pitches. In other words, they increase their borderline pitch swing rate by 3.5 percentage points when the gap between a walk and a single is the largest.

That’s a rather unimpressive number. It’s the clearest time to swing that you can imagine, and batters are hardly changing their behavior. But that’s logical, when you think about it. Walks aren’t suddenly worthless just because you could drive in a run; juicing up the bases for the next batter still has value. And swinging at borderline pitches is hardly the best way to drive in runs; taking borderline pitches and waiting for a mistake, or for the pitcher to challenge you, might be a better decision.
Read the rest of this entry »

There probably isn’t a good way to pitch to Juan Soto. The man is simply impossible: End up an inch outside the zone, and he’ll take the pitch in stride, celebrating the occasion with his signature shuffle. End up anywhere near his comfort zone, and he’ll lace it into the outfield for a double, or worse, over the fence for a home run. You just have to pray and hope that Soto messes up his timing. He’s been blessed with a preternatural knack for plate discipline to go along with legitimate power, and to wrap up this sentence, he’s very good.

At the same time, pitchers must be doing something right, because so far, Soto is having the worst season of his career. With a 125 wRC+ as of this writing that might be other hitters’ best marks, Soto looks merely mortal in 2022. So what’s going on? I don’t claim to have all of or even necessarily the right answers, but I have a few ideas.

Before proceeding any further, I need to stress that Soto’s underperformance is largely a product of bad luck, plain and simple. Soto has a .207 BABIP. Nobody has a .207 BABIP! Even Joey Gallo has a .256 BABIP. Batting average on balls in play is mysteriously down in 2022, but that’s nowhere near enough to explain why Soto’s been a bottom-dweller in this regard. Another quirk from this year: Nearly everyone is lagging behind their expected wOBA because Statcast metrics have not been calibrated to the new offensive environment. Even so, the gap between Soto’s actual and expected wOBA is the 28th-largest in baseball. Soto isn’t really behaving like an inferior version of himself. The contact is there. The discipline is there. We’re still in June, and there’s plenty of time for a correction to occur. Read the rest of this entry »

The Learning and Developing a Pitch series is back for another season, and we’re once again hearing from pitchers on a notable weapon in their arsenal. Today’s installment features Detroit Tigers left-hander Andrew “Big Country” Chafin on his signature slider.

Chafin has a keep-it-simple-stupid [K.I.S.S.] approach to his best pitch, and it’s hard to argue with success. Since the start of last season, the mustachioed southpaw boasts a 2.17 ERA and 2.78 FIP over 94 relief outings, allowing just 62 hits and fanning 88 batters in 87 innings. Chafin has thrown his breaking ball 35.8% of the time this year.

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Andrew Chafin: “I hold a curveball grip, throw it as hard as I can, and it comes out a slider. So, is it a curveball or a slider? I guess whatever it does is what it is. Really, I don’t care what people call it as long as the hitters swing and miss. If that happens, I’m happy.

“I want to say I started learning [a breaking ball] in my junior year of high school, give or take. I don’t remember who I was working with in particular, I just found a grip that felt comfortable, and I tried to make it spin. There’s nothing special about how I grip it or throw it. Read the rest of this entry »

Who is baseball’s most irreplaceable player in 2022? This doesn’t mean the most valuable player, and in terms of the playoff hunt, the hardest player to replace isn’t necessarily the best one. Some teams are either cruising to the playoffs or effectively eliminated in practice, if not in purely mathematical terms (hello, Tigers and Royals). To answer this question, I ran the updated ZiPS projected standings after Tuesday’s games and then re-ran the entire simulation with the assumption that each relevant player missed the rest of the season due to injury.

For the NL, ZiPS estimates that nine teams remain plausible playoff contenders, which I define as having a 5% chance of making MLB’s new 12-team playoff format. The exceptions are the Diamondbacks, Cubs, Rockies, Pirates, Nationals, and Reds. Seven of the nine remaining teams are above 50%, with only the Phillies (27%) and Marlins (8%) between a coin flip and that arbitrarily chosen 5% threshold. Let’s jump right into the NL’s top 10 list.

1. Corbin Burnes, Milwaukee Brewers, -11.0%

Burnes was always going to make this top 10 list, but Brandon Woodruff‘s ankle injury and Freddy Peralta‘s more significant shoulder injury push him into the top slot. The hit may even be more severe than the -11% listed here; ZiPS puts a lot of stock in Aaron Ashby’s presence, but any kind of forearm pain for a pitcher should lead fans to look sadly into the middle distance. Nobody on the Brewers comes even close to Burnes in playoff impact, so a nasty surprise here ought to make them very aggressive about picking up a pitcher. After all, we’re already into the Chi Chi González portion of the depth chart.

2. Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves, -9.0%

Ronald Acuña Jr. has a better projection than Olson, but ZiPS sees Atlanta’s options at first base to be relatively bleak. That was one of the team’s biggest questions back when Freddie Freeman was a free agent, and though Atlanta has patched together DH somewhat, all bets are off with a serious Olson injury. In the event he goes down, I expect it’s more likely that Austin Riley plays first with Phil Gosselin playing third than Adam Duvall or Eddie Rosario getting shifted to first, but since ZiPS isn’t a Gosselin-stanner, it thinks that’s only shuffling a hole around. Read the rest of this entry »

You can call the Rays unlucky, if you’d like. After amassing the second-most WAR from position players in all of baseball last year, 2022 has been a huge step back. They’re 18th in the league, with an aggregate wRC+ below 100, and injuries have taken a huge toll on the lineup they planned to run out at the start of the year.

Wander Franco, their wunderkind shortstop, hasn’t played since May 30. Brandon Lowe, perhaps the best hitter on the team, has been out two weeks longer than Franco. Manuel Margot had been picking up some of the offensive slack, but now he’s out with a knee injury that may cause him to miss significant time, and fellow outfielder Kevin Kiermaier hit the IL the same day. Mike Zunino was ineffective and is now hurt. Josh Lowe and Taylor Walls, two of the team’s top reinforcements coming into the year, have a combined 51 wRC+. Read the rest of this entry »

You can read previous installments of our prospect notes here.

I’m touching up prospect lists using the same complex-based clustering as usual, incorporating notes from my in-person looks, sourced data, and the opinions of pro scouts. First up is the group of teams based in Scottsdale, with a focus on the Giants due to their status as contenders, making them the team most likely to be motivated to part with prospects between now and the trade deadline. Players whose Future Value grade changed have an “Up” or “Down” arrow in the “Trend” column on The Board.

Arizona Diamondbacks

I didn’t make many changes to Arizona’s list. Small-school righty Brandon Pfaadt leapfrogs former tiermates Blake Walston and Ryne Nelson, and moves into the Top 100. He’s throwing a tick harder than last year and working with three above-average (or better) pitches at Double-A Amarillo now that his changeup has taken a step forward. While he’s a below-average 2B/3B, recent debutant Buddy Kennedy has hit enough to be considered a righty-hitting 1-WAR role-player type, à la Mike Brosseau. Jose Curpa and Christian Montes De Oca have been added to the org list; their reports can be found on The Board. I also considered adding hard-throwing youngsters Rael Santos and Diomede Sierra (each 20-21 years old and sitting 94 mph), but they’ve been too walk-prone for that. Read the rest of this entry »

Miguel Cabrera, Albert Pujols, and Joey Votto are three of the best hitters of our generation. All are future Hall of Famers. They are also aging veterans. The illustrious threesome has combined to play 58 big league seasons, with Votto the baby of the bunch at 38 years old. Cabrera is 39. Pujols is 42. Their cumulative experience is nearly as notable as their prodigious statistical accomplishments.

What is it like to work with legends like Cabrera, Pujols, and Votto? I asked that question to their current hitting coaches: Detroit’s Scott Coolbaugh, St. Louis’ Jeff Albert, and Cincinnati’s Alan Zinter.

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Scott Coolbaugh on Miguel Cabrera

“It’s a privilege and an honor to be around somebody as good as Miggy. He’s obviously a future Hall of Famer. To accomplish the things he’s been able to is eye-opening. I obviously haven’t been around him his whole career — just the last few years — but the way he goes about his business, and the enjoyment he has in the game… he’s still a young kid, even though he’s 39 years old. He treats it like a game. He has fun with it. He keeps it simple.

“Everybody is in awe of how pure of a right-handed hitter he is, how pure his swing is. The things he can do with the baseball a lot of guys have worked hard to do just one time. He does it on a consistent basis. It makes you a better coach to be around somebody like that, to see how he goes about it, and hear what his thoughts are. To sit in a cage and have the conversations with him… and sometimes it’s not even about hitting. It’s about how simple he keeps the game. Read the rest of this entry »

Who is baseball’s most irreplaceable player in 2022? This doesn’t mean the most valuable player, and in terms of the playoff hunt, the hardest player to replace isn’t necessarily the best one. Some teams are either cruising to the playoffs or effectively eliminated in practice, if not in purely mathematical terms (hello, Tigers and Royals). To answer this question, I ran the updated ZiPS projected standings after Tuesday’s games and then re-ran the entire simulation with the assumption that each relevant player missed the rest of the season due to injury.

For the AL, ZiPS estimates that 10 teams remain plausible playoff contenders, which I define as having a 5% chance of making MLB’s new 12-team playoff format. The exceptions are the Tigers, Royals, A’s, and Orioles. After this quartet, there’s a significant jump to the Rangers at 9% and the Angels at 10%. Sorry, there are no Yankees and Astros on this list with their respective big leads in their divisions. Let’s jump right into the AL’s top 10 list.

1. José Ramírez, Cleveland Guardians, -15.8%

ZiPS projects the Guardians as only the third-best team in the weak AL Central despite currently being part of a first-place tie, which gives them about a coin flip’s chance to make the expanded playoffs. While both Andrés Giménez and Shane Bieber project to finish the season in All-Star territory at over four WAR, Ramírez remains the player who most drives Cleveland and the only one who could figure in the MVP race. Ernie Clement is the most likely player to step in if Ramírez was lost for the year — he’s already filling in for him — and that’s a massive downgrade for a team that generally needs things to go right in order to make the playoffs.

2. Rafael Devers, Boston Red Sox, -11.8%

The fact that Devers ranks so highly should get the Red Sox thinking when the subject of a possible extension for their star third baseman comes up. Boston has surged back into the playoff picture in recent weeks, but its playoff hopes still rest on the edge of a knife, and the in-house replacements for Devers are a weak group. Bobby Dalbec and the returning Christian Arroyo would likely take over at third unless the team decided to move Enrique Hernández to the position. Suffice it to say that Boston’s not giving Devers a lot of time off to play some designated hitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about whether changing managers is at all responsible for the Phillies’ recent success, the Yankees’ almost unparalleled winning-percentage pace, the Royals’ historically terrible pitching performance and the pressure on their pitching coach, another Taylor Ward/Tyler Wade broadcaster slipup, Anthony Rendon’s season-ending surgery, Michael Lorenzen’s comments about baseball slipperiness and MLB’s new mud mandate, a tough-negotiating teen fan’s price for J.J. Matijevic’s first career home run ball, a persuasive display of the minor-league ball/strike challenge system, the major league promotions of Riley Greene and Oneil Cruz, and Lorenzo Cain’s career, plus Stat Blasts (1:15:51) about an entire lineup turning over in a single game and losing pitchers who made the last out of a game, and (1:30:21) a Past Blast from 1865.

Audio intro: Pulp, “Can I Have My Balls Back, Please?”
Audio outro: The Moody Blues, “Steppin’ in a Slide Zone”

Link to Joe Sheehan’s poll
Link to The Athletic writers on Girardi
Link to Jay Jaffe on the Yankees
Link to B-Ref newsletter on the Yankees
Link to tweet with Moore quote
Link to follow-up tweet about Moore
Link to Moore audio
Link to Moore video
Link to Royals’ staff’s + stats
Link to Lorenzen comments
Link to MLB mud memo
Link to Matijevic game story
Link to Matijevic video
Link to story on Jeter’s 3000th
Link to ball/strike challenge video
Link to MiLB experimental rules
Link to news about the zone
Link to story on Cruz’s debut
Link to story on Madris’s debut
Link to Andy McCullough on Cain
Link to Stathead
Link to new Stathead feature explainer
Link to lineup-changes Stat Blast data
Link to losing P/last out Stat Blast data
Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter account
Link to Forsch game story
Link to first DH story
Link to second DH story
Link to Richard Hershberger’s Strike Four
Link to 1865 story source
Link to first diamond image
Link to second diamond image
Link to history of spike use

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What is your favorite baseball memory? I posed that question to 10 major league players, and in nearly every instance, the response began with a question of their own: “Does it have to be from my own career?” While all were happy to share one (or more) meaningful memory from their time in the big leagues, it was primarily magic moments from their days as fans and/or young amateurs that stood out the most.

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Jackie Bradley Jr., Boston Red Sox

“I have two. Being able to have all of my family members at the All-Star game with me in San Diego in 2016 is one. The other is having my family with me in London, England for the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry series [in 2019]. They were all with me for the [2018] World Series as well, so there are actually three: All-Star Game, World Series, and being able to travel all the way to London, halfway around the world, to watch me play. In no particular order, those would be my favorite baseball memories.” Read the rest of this entry »