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The date is May 11, 2018. Kendall Graveman, a 27-year-old right-hander in the back of the Athletics’ rotation, is languishing through a bad season, and the lineup in front of him is as difficult as any he’s faced: the Yankees. Now in his fourth season with Oakland, expectations for him aren’t terribly high: He has an ERA- of 101 and FIP- of 107 over 407 innings across the past three seasons; he’s missed significant time with shoulder and oblique injuries; and he’s struck out under six batters per nine for his career. But he isn’t even living up to that standard anymore. His first six starts of 2018 have resulted in a grotesque 8.89 ERA, and there is a new ailment growing undeniable in his throwing arm.

Despite all of that, though, his Yankees start is going pretty well. His offense has spotted him a four-run lead, and with two out and a base open for Aaron Judge in the fifth, all he has to do is make sure he doesn’t throw him anything he can hit. He goes to his sinker, his go-to offering, and wills it to run off the plate inside. The pitch refuses.

Graveman would go on to escape with the win by the skin of his teeth. In six innings, he allows four runs, strikes out four, walks two, and gives up two homers. It might be his best start of the season. It’s also the last time he pitches in the majors for 808 days.

The date is now May 7, 2021, nearly three years after that Yankees start. Graveman is wearing a Mariners uniform and pitching in the ninth inning with a one-run lead and the tying run behind him at second base. He’s facing the Rangers, who are decidedly not the Yankees. But the guy at the plate, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, is no joke. Graveman throws a sinker, his go-to offering, and wills it to run off the plate inside. The pitch obeys.

Wait. Did that say 99?

Yep, sure did. Two pitches later, he throws Kiner-Falefa another sinker, and gets another whiff.

The next hitter, Charlie Culberson, suffers a similar fate. He also swings through two pitches in the at-bat; both of them are sliders, and the last one touches 90.

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The injury bug is biting all too often these days, and this week, it has taken a chunk out of Mike Trout’s season. Off to one of the best starts of his career, the 29-year-old center fielder strained his right calf in Monday night’s game, an injury that will sideline him for six to eight weeks — potentially the longest outage of his career — greatly reducing both the chances that the Angels will make the playoffs and that Trout will claim his fourth MVP award.

As if we needed more proof that the universe is a random and uncaring place, Trout suffered the injury doing something that turned out to be entirely routine and inconsequential: running the bases on a two-out popup by Jared Walsh. The play took place at the end of the first inning of the Angels’ game against Cleveland, after Trout had walked and taken second base on a wild pitch. You can see from the overhead video that by the time he reached third base, he was visibly limping:

Trout left the game, underwent an MRI on Tuesday, and was diagnosed with a Grade 2 calf strain. “I thought I got hit by a line drive,” he told reporters in describing his injury. “And then I got to the bag and then I said, ‘Man, something’s not right.’ And then I felt a pop and then I went down to the tunnel, made sure it wasn’t my Achilles, so I mean, I guess if there’s any positive coming out of it, it’s that it wasn’t my Achilles because that’s what scared me when it first happened. It was just a freak thing.” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s time to proclaim 2021 the Year of the No-Hitter.

At the beginning of April, Joe Musgrove graced us with an electric performance versus the Rangers. Just five days later, Carlos Rodón announced his resurgence by shutting down Cleveland. John Means then tossed a near-perfect game against the Mariners, and Wade Miley followed in Rodón’s footsteps, handing Cleveland another no-hit night. That brings us to yesterday, when Spencer Turnbull became the latest pitcher to go the distance, striking out nine Mariners while allowing just two baserunners via a pair of walks.

That’s an almost unfathomable five no-hitters – and we’re still in the month of May. Since 1901, the only other season with at least five such games before June was 1917, a year that falls in major league baseball’s Dead Ball era. There were six total no-nos that year, all thrown prior to June, but it doesn’t feel like the string of no-hitters will come to a stop this time around. Though the league’s offensive environment is certainly livelier now compared to a century ago, pitchers of all sizes, deliveries, and repertoires are throwing harder and smarter than before. In addition, a greater emphasis on power has seen hitters whiffing at higher and higher rates, sacrificing contact for big hits. The modern record for the most no-hitters in a single season is seven, which occurred in 1990, 1991, and 2012. We are on track to obliterate it.

On a more granular note, the Seattle Mariners give opposing pitchers one of the better chances at authoring baseball history. Coming into the game against Detroit, they collectively carried a 89 wRC+, the eighth-lowest mark in baseball. At the conclusion of Turnbull’s masterful performance, the team’s batting average dropped below .200, the worst in the majors. Mariners hitters have struck out in 26.3% of their plate appearances, but the main issue is they just aren’t performing well – that goes for regulars (Dylan Moore) and recently demoted prospects (Taylor Trammell) alike. Read the rest of this entry »

Heading into the ninth inning of a blowout loss Monday, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli waved the white flag and summoned Willians Astudillo from… wherever he was sitting at the time. La Tortuga already had a scoreless inning under his belt this year, titillating Twins fans and the Baseball Twitterverse with an eephus that limped over the plate at 49 mph. Astudillo’s slow-pitch softball routine was received warmly that first appearance, and in a year where very little has gone right for Minnesota, the locals seemed pleased to see him out there again.

Naturally, we couldn’t get through the outing without an unwritten rules controversy.

With two outs, Astudillo fell behind Yermín Mercedes 3-0. The catcher-turned-hurler boldly stuck with the pitch that he’d ridden to get the first two outs and lobbed another one, this time over the outer half of the plate.

Mercedes hit the tar out of it:

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The Mets have been no strangers to injury this year. As Jay Jaffe detailed yesterday, Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil aggravated injuries on the same play Sunday afternoon. When Kevin Pillar was hit in the face by a pitch on Monday night, the situation worsened. In an attempt to keep their roster afloat, the Mets acquired Cameron Maybin from the Cubs for cash considerations, as Bob Nightengale first reported.

Maybin will be reporting to Triple-A, but that state of affairs probably won’t last long. The Mets started Khalil Lee and Johneshwy Fargas in the outfield last night, which brought their combined career major league start total up from one (Fargas started Monday night) to three. Dominic Smith anchored the unit, as it were, but Fargas and Lee have combined for 72 plate appearances above Double-A. It’s clearly not a working solution for the injury-ravaged club.

Maybin is an obvious short-term upgrade, but not so long ago, he looked like he might be more than an injury fill-in. In 2019, he played an abbreviated season with the Yankees and unlocked heretofore unseen power; his 11 home runs were a career high despite only 269 plate appearances. Read the rest of this entry »

With the calendar turning to late May, it feels strange to say that the industry is still a long way from making 2021 draft selections, but the new July start date isn’t the only unique thing about this year’s draft. The ongoing global pandemic and the larger player pool created by last year’s draft being reduced by nearly 90% have created additional challenges in terms of preparation for July 11. With just under two months to go before teams are on the clock, I got it touch with a number of key decision makers around baseball to get a better sense of what’s going on behind the scenes.

Dealing With the Information Deficit

The pandemic has created a variety of evaluation challenges, but few have had a greater impact than the lack of a 2020 Cape Cod League and the highly abbreviated and lightly attended high school summer showcase season. These lost opportunities to see potential draftees play against the best of their peers have left teams without one of their loudest data points as they begin to print out magnets and line up their boards. “With college hitters, we’re no more certain than we are with the high school guys right now,” said one National League scouting executive. “We just don’t have the big data advantage for college players that we used to.” One American League executive agreed, but not to the same extent. “We are poised for more uncertainly and variability due to the smaller track records, but it’s not as uncertain as I expected it to be.”

Another AL decision maker said that last year’s limitations in terms of scouting have provided an unexpected benefit in terms of dealing with this year’s challenges. “We learned in last year’s draft that there is still a lot of information out there and ways to evaluate it that we hadn’t taken advantage of in the past,” he said. “We were forced in 2020 to be open to different ways and now it’s become a new way of doing things.”

One of the most impactful innovations over the last decade has been that of the draft model. Nearly every team utilizes some kind of projection and/or scoring model that takes in historical performance and other, more advanced data sources and spits out some measure of draft value, but one American League evaluator worried that the lack of recent information will result in a garbage in/garbage out scenario. “We have guys who had a rough three weeks in 2020 but are playing well now,” he said, lamenting the incredibly small samples produced by the pandemic. “I think a lot of models are just going to have to be thrown out the window this year.”

More Players, More Problems

There were 1,217 players selected in the 2019 draft. In 2020, the number was reduced to 160. That leaves over 1,000 potential draftees who returned to school, transferred to new schools or entered the college ranks with the plan of impressing scouts for next year. That sudden glut of players was expected to complicate matters greatly, but late into the 2021 scouting season, teams have found the suddenly larger player pool isn’t impacting their processes as much as they initially anticipated. “There’s a handful of guys who had to come back that are going go in the first two days,” said one National League exec. “But I don’t think it’s that many of them; we’re certainly not going to see some flood of 22-year-olds,” he concluded, noting that age plays a massive role, as teams are weighing date of birth more heavily than ever. “Once you’re 22, the bloom is off the rose,” another executive added. One American League executive agreed that the large player pool will have little effect early, but should begin to play into later selections. “It doesn’t feel like twice the number of players, for whatever reason,” he concluded. “I do think that it’s going to become a factor from rounds six through 20, and I think that teams are still figuring out how to draft when it’s down to 20 rounds.”

Early Disappointment in the New Draft League And Combine

Another twist to this year’s draft has been the establishment of the new MLB-organized Draft League, which was cobbled together from six Northeast teams that lost their minor league affiliation, as well as a medical and performance combine in late June. These were generally seen as positive developments when initially announced, but the list of players participating has left much to be desired for teams looking for more information.

Some are taking more of a wait-and-see approach to an event that is just getting going and is dealing with the same real-world challenges everyone has been grappling with over the last year and a half. “I would expect it to take some time with people easing into it,” said one American League executive. “Let’s get past the pandemic before we start judging.” Another AL decision-maker agreed. “I think the intention is good and it’s going to take some time to make it normal for people,” he explained. “It’s all new and it’s going to take some time. It’s not a bust as much as it’s a work in progress.”

Still, some are disappointed by the early returns. “There are names going into that Draft League and they aren’t even Day Three options,” said one exacerbated National League executive. “You’ve got guys that are barely playing for their college team this spring but they are going to play there. Going would be a waste of time for us.”

“I’ve just kind of blocked it out,” said a senior American League scout. “I’m just going to the Cape.”

Multiple insiders brought up the CBA in terms of the combine, saying that how everything unfolds in this year’s negotiations will help define the future efficacy of the event. Others argue that as with other sports, many top prospects will continue to avoid something that can only create negative value for them. “If you are an agent with a brain, why would you send your player there?” Asked one National League executive. “All you can do is lose money.”

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Dodgers signing Albert Pujols and what the rest of his season could look like, Kevin Pillar’s broken nose and the ongoing HBP epidemic, Shohei Ohtani’s latest heroics (and modeling video) and whether he can become a face of baseball and a crossover star, MLB’s rising injury rate, Huascar Ynoa’s self-inflicted fracture (and whether teams should invest in dugout/tunnel padding), Yermín Mercedes hitting a homer off of Willians Astudillo and igniting a tired unwritten rules debate, the Twins as potential sellers, Yasmani Grandal’s wild slash line, Nick Castellanos getting revenge on Rob Manfred, and Kyle Schwarber enjoying a mid-game snack, plus a flopping vs. framing follow-up and postscripts about Mike Trout’s injury and Tony La Russa.

Audio intro: Jimi Hendrix, "Crosstown Traffic"
Audio outro: Minor Threat, "In My Eyes"

Link to Jay Jaffe on the Pujols signing
Link to Jay on the Mets’ many injuries
Link to combined WAR leaderboard
Link to MLB.com on Ohtani’s homers
Link to video of Ohtani’s oppo homer
Link to video of Ohtani’s pulled homer
Link to Ohtani’s Hugo Boss video
Link to Ohtani’s Hugo Boss page
Link to tweet about the Angels
Link to video of Mercedes homer
Link to slowest pitches hit for homers
Link to video of Andrus obstruction play
Link to postgame Castellanos interview
Link to Bryant/Schwarber Twix video
Link to video of Trout injury
Link to story about Trout injury
Link to The Onion on Ohtani
Link to Ben on Tatis and unwritten rules
Link to Sox Machine on La Russa
Link to The Athletic on La Russa

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

Demarcus Evans, RHP, Texas Rangers
Level & Affiliate: Triple-A Round Rock Age: 24 Org Rank: TBD  FV: 40+
Line: 2 IP, 0 H, 2 BB, 5 K
Notes
Evans lives almost entirely off his fastball’s carry and angle, which punishes hitters at the top of the zone. I saw him sit 94–96 mph during the spring. He can also dump in an inconsistent 12-to-6 curveball, but his feel for burying it is still poor, and it hangs in the zone too often. In an attempt to find a more impactful second pitch, Evans has added a cutter. The outing I saw during the spring was his second or third time using it, and it was understandably of mixed quality. We’re still talking about a premium fastball here, though — one that plays in a similar fashion to James Karinchak‘s and Nick Anderson’s fastballs. But there’s just no second plus offering to pair with it. I think it’s more likely Evans ends up in a middle relief role early on, but he’s a high-leverage lock if a secondary pitch ever materializes.

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At a time when they’re already without ace Jacob deGrom and two of their top hitters, and still trying to dig out of a team-wide early-season slump that led to the dismissal of their hitting coaches, the Mets lost two more regulars to the Injured List on Sunday. Facing the Rays in St. Petersburg, both Michael Conforto and Jeff McNeil left after suffering hamstring injuries in the first inning, the kind of calamity that seems as though it could befall only the Mets. The team received no respite, because in Monday’s game, starting pitcher Taijuan Walker departed after three innings due to tightness in his left side, and then Kevin Pillar was hit in the face by a fastball, suffering a bloodied and broken nose and perhaps more. An Injured List that’s already at an even dozen threatens to continue to grow.

McNeil, who had previously departed last Tuesday’s game against the Orioles due to what was termed “body cramps” after trying to stretch a single into a double, legged out an infield single to lead off Sunday’s game, and was erased on an inning-ending double play. As he was the designated hitter, his spot didn’t come up again until the third inning, at which time he was pinch-hit for by Patrick Mazeika. He departed with what the team initially described as “left hamstring tightness.”

That double play ball came off the bat of Conforto, who was visibly limping and grabbing his right hamstring by the time he crossed first base. You can see that in the video, as well as McNeil getting no further than halfway to second by the time Brandon Lowe’s throw reached Ji-Man Choi:

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