With the adoption of the Hawk-Eye tracking system before the 2020 season, analysts and fans alike can directly measure the orientation of the baseball’s spin axis as it heads towards the pitcher. Previously the readings we would see on Baseball Savant were based on the movement of the pitch; the spin axis was inferred. Tom Tango, Senior Data Architect over at MLBAM and author of The Book, delves into the nuances between the spin axis readings here. The differences are derived from the nature of the tracking system before (TrackMan radar) and after (the aforementioned technology from Hawk-Eye, which consists of a series of high-speed cameras placed around the ballpark) 2020. During the offseason, the good people at Baseball Savant rolled out some leaderboards with the new measured spin axis data and compared that to inferred spin axis by pitcher and pitch type. The deviation between the two quantities is the result of the seam-shifted wake effect, a new idea permeating the baseball analyst community. Christian Hook from Driveline has a good piece introducing the phenomenon, as do our very own Ben Clemens and The Athletic’s Eno Sarris; I’d also point you to Barton Smith, Alan Nathan, and Harry Pavlidis’ excellent piece at Baseball Prospectus, as well as Barton’s other work on the subject.

At some point in the future, I hope to add to the discourse regarding seam-shifted wake. For now, though, I want to look into another idea we can analyze with this new access to measured spin axis. Until recently the ability to dive deep into the new spin axis data has been limited. We, the public, only had access to data summarized by pitcher and pitch type. Now, thanks to the wonderful work of Bill Petti and his baseballR package (and MLBAM for deciding to release the information), we can extract the measured spin axis on the pitch level in 2020. With this influx of new data, I re-scraped and stored the pitch-by-pitch data in my Statcast database (which I could not have done without Bill’s tutorial).

With that being said, my first inclination was to look at how pitches paired together in the context of spin mirroring. The idea behind spin mirroring is to deceive the hitter. Two pitches that rotate about the same axis but in opposite directions are hard to discern by the batter. For insight into spin axis and how it differs for different pitch types, I recommend checking out this comprehensive piece from Dan Aucoin at Driveline where he explains the importance of understanding a pitch’s spin axis, how it explains pitch movement, and deviations between axis and expected movement based on the axis via the magnus force. Mike Petriello at MLB.com has also given good insight into how spin axis allows certain pairs of pitches and repertoire’s to yield better results than just velocity and movement would indicate. He specifically dug into Shane Bieber’s diverse repertoire, which lacks elite velocity and correspondingly elite spin. Read the rest of this entry »

Emerson Hancock brought a power arsenal with him to the Seattle Mariners organization. Drafted sixth-overall last year out of the University of Georgia, the 22-year-old right-hander features a mid-90s fastball, a biting slider, a plus changeup, and a capable curveball. But he’s not your prototypical flamethrower. While not backing away from the power-pitcher label, Hancock fashions himself more as a craftsman, a starter who can go deep into games by mixing and matching, and by commanding the strike zone. His track record backs that up. Over his final two collegiate seasons — this in the talent-laded SEC — he logged 131 strikeouts, and walked just 21, in 114-and-a-third innings.

No. 4 on our Mariners Top Prospects list, Hancock currently has a 2.19 ERA in four starts comprising 12.1 innings with the High-A Everett AquaSox. He talked pitching with FanGraphs over the weekend.

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David Laurila: To start, give me a self scouting report. How do you identify as a pitcher?

Emerson Hancock: “One thing I’ve always tried to do, especially since college, is be able to ‘pitch’ — mix speeds, throw pitches in different locations, throw anything in any count to get hitters off balance. That’s something I take pride in. Another thing is trying to do the little things right, like holding runners.”

Laurila: You have plus stuff. How do you go about balancing power and command?

Hancock: “Something that’s helped me is that I haven’t always had the power. In high school, I struggled to have that big-time velocity, so I kind of had to learn at a younger age how to ‘pitch.’ At Georgia, [velocity] started happening — it came along — so now I had this other way. I had to learn how to use it. Even now, in the minor leagues, I’m trying to find different ways to use it. It’s something that’s always evolving for me.” Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen. Read previous installments here.

Ethan Small, LHP, Milwaukee Brewers
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Biloxi  Age: 24   Org Rank: TBD   FV: 45
Line: 5.2 IP, 2 H, 2 BB, 0 R, 8 K

Notes
Small had a sketchy spring with the big club and has walked an uncharacteristically high number of hitters early on this year, but his last couple of starts have been more in line with expectations as he blows his low-90s fastball (which has big time carry) past opposing hitters. Small’s best secondary pitch remains his changeup and there were doubts about him ever finding a competent breaking ball when he was drafted. So far, his slider and curveball remain below average but that there are now two distinct breakers here is meaningful. He still projects as a No. 4/5 starter with a shot to make the back of the Top 100 as a 50 FV if the command and/or breaking balls tighten up. Read the rest of this entry »

Evan Longoria has been as critical to the Giants’ success this season as any of their grizzled veterans, but the NL West leaders (!) could be without the 35-year-old third baseman until after the All-Star break. Longoria suffered a sternoclavicular dislocation of his left shoulder in a collision on Saturday, and landed on the 10-day Injured List. Ouch!

The injury occurred during the top of the ninth inning of the Giants’ game against the Cubs. Shifted towards second base with lefty Anthony Rizzo at the plate, Longoria ranged to his left to field a soft chopper, where he ran into shortstop Brandon Crawford and got the worst of it, and not only because Rizzo was safe at first as Kris Bryant scored. Longoria remained on the ground for several minutes and left the field accompanied by the team’s head athletic trainer, Anthony Reyes:

Crawford was uninjured, but Longoria was placed on the IL on Sunday with what was initially termed a left shoulder sprain, and initial indications that he would miss four to six weeks. Sunday brought a bit more specificity, via The Athletic’s Andrew Baggarly:

Evan Longoria said he was diagnosed with a dislocated SC joint, which links the clavicle to the sternum. So the pain isn't in his shoulder. It's a weird injury and he isn't sure what to expect timetable wise. He's had X-rays but not an MRI yet.

— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) June 6, 2021

Sternoclavicular joint dislocations aren’t often seen in baseball; they’re more often associated with motor vehicle accidents or collision sports such as football and rugby. Anterior dislocations such as the one Longoria apparently suffered, are one matter, but posterior dislocations can be life-threatening, as they can affect a person’s esophagus, airway, or vital arteries. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Crawford’s career has always centered around his elite defense; he’s won three Gold Gloves and has been one of the best defenders in baseball over the last decade. But behind the accolades for his glove was a quietly improving offensive player. He upped his wRC+ each season in his first five and earned down-ballot MVP votes in 2016 on the back of 5.2 WAR and career-best defensive metrics. Heading into his age-30 season in ’17, our positional power rankings pegged him as one of the best shortstops in baseball and projected him for 3.5 WAR.

Instead, Crawford started a sharp decline, putting up just 4.4 WAR over the next three years. By the time 2020 rolled around, his career was a half-sunk dinghy; coming off of a near–replacement-level season, he was expected to lose playing time. And his downturn couldn’t have come at a worse time, with free agency coming after the 2021 season and the Giants under new boss Farhan Zaidi beginning to transition away from the aging veterans who made up a big chunk of San Francisco’s roster. But facing the end, Crawford posted a 111 wRC+ and a career-high .209 ISO last season, then built on that improvement this year with a 141 wRC+ and 2.1 WAR — the latter the best figure than he’s put up since ’17.

The following chart shows a closer look at his late-career resurgence.

Read the rest of this entry »

One of my favorite things about attending a live baseball game is how it sounds. Sure, the pops and cracks of leather and wood on the field are comforting in their own right, but what I’m really talking about is the chatter. The constant din of anonymous talkers throwing out well-researched stats, or strongly felt opinions on pitchers’ hair length, or two-notches-too-loud questions about where the Bud Light guy is. And as much as I enjoy the ambient noise of a major-league ballpark, for my money, there is no baseball chatter that compares to that found in the stands of a high school game.

At the end of May, I attended my first live baseball game since 2019, a matchup on the South Side of Chicago between Marist High School and Marian Catholic. Heading into the game, Marist had the best record in Illinois, thanks in part to Noah Smith, their toolsy infielder, and our top-ranked high school prospect in the state. Also on the field was Smith’s Area Codes teammate and fellow Louisville commit, Eddie King Jr., playing in the outfield for Marian Catholic. But in the bleachers along the first base line, the chatter wasn’t about whether Smith would ever eliminate the sway in his swing and stabilize his head to more consistently identify breaking balls, or how hot a bat King was swinging after he smashed a double off the left-field wall (he had homered in the game the day before, also against Marist). Instead, I found myself seated in between a group of teens who had googled the team’s roster because one of them was pretty sure she’d sat next to one of the outfielders in Freshman Spanish, and a mom who spent the entire game playing defense against her toddler, who was intent on pulling on the cord coming out of the camera she had perched on the railing to record her older son’s performance on the field.

After the game, there were hugs and pats on the back from the parents in the stands, and awkward giggles from the group of girls I’d been sitting by, none of whom seemed keen on actually approaching any of the players. Marian Catholic won 9-7, issuing Marist its first conference loss of the season (and third loss overall), and knocking them down to second place in the state. If anyone in the stands noticed, they hid their disappointment well. But regardless of whether or not the audience at this mid-week, mid-afternoon high school game was aware of the stakes of the game itself, it was clear how much they cared about the players on the field. The sense of community was palpable. Even as an outsider, I felt like I’d attended an event that meant something to my fellow spectators – something specific, and unrelated to baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

After a week hiatus, the FanGraphs Power Rankings return. We’re two months into the season and the best teams in the rankings have started to pull away from the pack while a large group of teams have congregated in the middle. These teams are on the bubble between viewing themselves as contenders and deciding to retool for next year by selling at the trade deadline.

A quick refresher: my approach takes the three most important components of a team — their offense (wRC+), and their starting rotation and bullpen (50%/50% FIP- and RA9-) — and combines them to create an overall team quality metric. I add in a factor for “luck” — adjusting based on a team’s expected win-loss record — to produce a power ranking.

The top tier stays big, as the top three teams from each league have put some distance between themselves and their competition.

In the National League, the top trio happens to all be battling for the NL West division crown, too. After getting swept by the Dodgers at home two weeks ago, the Giants have won nine of their last 11 games, including taking revenge against the Dodgers a week ago and recording a big series win over the Cubs. They’ve “pulled away” from the Padres by opening up a two-game lead in the division, though the loss of Evan Longoria won’t help their cause. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’ve read a lot of my work here, you probably know that I’m a huge fan of bunting. Some bunting, at least — I’m not talking about bone-headed sacrifices at the altar of small ball. There’s just something satisfying about a well-placed bunt, pushed past the pitcher and to an open space vacated by the defense. Bunts against the shift are a delight. Bunts not against the shift, where the hitter is simply better at bunting than the defense is at defending, are great too. This article is not about one of those bunts.

On Friday night, the Dodgers were locked in a tight battle. Runs had been hard to come by against opposing starter Ian Anderson, though Julio Urías was doing his part to keep the team in the game, surrendering only a solo home run through four innings. In the top of the fifth, Urías got a chance to help the team on the offensive end as well. With runners on first and third and the game tied after a close play at the plate, he stepped up to bat with one out in the inning.

Urías isn’t a bad hitter, at least as far as pitchers go. He sports a career line of .175/.188/.190, a fair sight better than the overall .124/.143/.159 line across baseball over the course of his career. Still, he’s an awful hitter, as far as major league hitters go. Dave Roberts called for a bunt. Read the rest of this entry »