Jay Jaffe FanGraphs Chat – 6/25/21

2:02
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon, folks! I’m back from my annual Cape Cod trip, and i could almost pass for tanned and rested.

2:04
Avatar Jay Jaffe: it appears that a technical glitch prevented the word about this chat from getting out until just a short while ago so I’m going to take a couple minutes to finish lunch while the queue fills up

2:04
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Here’s my piece from yesterday — my only piece in the past week — about Mookie Betts’ strange season https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mookie-betts-has-been-in-a-funk/

2:06
Gary: Evidence suggests Gary Sanchez got the timing right on his leg kick in the middle of an at-bat in Tampa in May and has been on a tear since then. How often do you think mechnical things are figured out mid-game like this? (Also, hey, he can still hit)

2:09
Avatar Jay Jaffe: It’s been great to see Sanchez turn things around given the unending shit avalanche to which he’s been subjected by a certain segment of the local fans and media. Color me skeptical that Sanchez hadn’t been experimenting with dropping the leg kick behind the scenes before going that route in-game.

2:09
Avatar Jay Jaffe: Here’s a quote from Aaron Boone via the NY Daily News’ Kristie Ackert:

“He’s worked really, really hard behind the scenes too and having the courage to make some real adjustments. But it’s been rooted in a lot of hard work and a lot of hours and correcting that. And now you’re seeing a real quiet, lower half a much more balanced hitter,”

Read the rest of this entry »


The Struggles of Jurickson Profar

As the Padres were transitioning from upstart to powerhouse over the offseason, they signed Jurickson Profar to a three year deal. It was a relatively quiet move for a team that did some big things over the winter, but a three year deal for a fourth outfielder, or super-utility man, is bold. It was a signing that signified the importance of depth for a team competing in the same division as the godfather of depth, the Dodgers. Profar, a former number one overall prospect, spent the early days of his career suffering through shoulder injuries and poor performance before finally breaking out in 2018 as an average hitter who can play everywhere competently. His 2020 was spent doing just that for the Padres as he covered five different positions, played nearly everyday and put up a career high 111 wRC+. That’s how you get yourself a three year deal without being the prototypical everyday starter.

Turns out the Padres were right to spend a little money on depth. Like seemingly every team, they’ve had a lot of injuries. Profar has played five different positions this season and is fifth on the Padres in plate appearances. That’s really the only part of the signing that has gone to plan, however, as the performance in those plate appearances has really cratered. In a lot of ways, he’s back to his pre-2018 breakout. He’s hitting the ball more softly and his fly balls aren’t leaving the yard.

The 2021 Slump
Season PA wRC+ Barrel% Avg. EV WAR/600 PA
2018-2020 1314 101 4.8% 87.0 2.51
2021 244 74 1.2% 85.1 -1.48

Even at his best, Profar wasn’t one to roast the ball. His career best exit velocity in 2018 was only good for the 25th percentile. This season, he’s down to the second percentile. Profar became an average hitter by hitting a decent number of line drives and pulled fly balls while also having a well above average strikeout rate. We’ll touch on the plate discipline a bit later but it’s been the fly balls that are the big issue for him. Read the rest of this entry »


Eric Longenhagen Chat: 6/25

12:01
Eric A Longenhagen: Good morning from Tempe, everyone.

12:02
Eric A Longenhagen: It’s the last day of Extended Spring, my target game got moved to 6pm so here I am. Let’s talk prospects and whatever else your heart desires for about an hour…

12:02
Buff Chick: Cubs or Brewers list first?

12:02
Eric A Longenhagen: Brewers

12:03
>this guy<: Eric are any of the prospect bonus demands starting to leak out and are those causing people to allegedly rise or slide according to #sources?

12:04
Eric A Longenhagen: Nothing beyond the handful of guys who already have very strong commits or who had bad springs. If there’s one player who’s the inverse of this it’s FL prep SS Jonathan Vastine (Vandy) who sounds more signable than we thought a couple months ago.

Read the rest of this entry »


What’s Up With Nolan Arenado’s Defense?

Heading into 2021, the question that loomed over Nolan Arenado concerned his bat. Could he remain productive outside of Coors Field? Roughly 40% into the season, the answer seems to be yes. Although his on-base and slugging percentage are down, handy wRC+ tells us that Arenado’s offensive output relative to the environment he’s in has remained consistent. On this front, he has been the star the Cardinals had hoped for.

On the other hand, I’m willing to bet good money that nobody was worried about Arenado’s glove. Altitude doesn’t affect one’s footwork or agility. We expected him to continue his life as one of the league’s best third basemen. And all things considered, he still is one of the league’s best third basemen. What follows isn’t the sound of panic, but rather a fact to keep in mind. Consider Arenado’s defensive numbers this season:

Arenado’s Defensive Numbers, 2016-21
Year Innings DRS UZR OAA
2016 1377.1 13 3.3 14
2017 1343.1 17 6.7 9
2018 1328.1 12 5.8 11
2019 1319.2 24 10.3 21
2020 417.1 11 8.5 7
2021 600.0 3 1.0 0

They’re… okay. Huh. That being average elicits this sort of reaction is a paean to Areando’s talent. When the three big defensive metrics all agree that his defense has taken a step back, though, you have to wonder – what’s going on? He’s no pumpkin at the hot corner, but he’s also not the superstar we’ve become accustomed to. Prorate his 2021 DRS to his 2019 workload in terms of innings fielded, and you’d wind up with 7 DRS after rounding up. That would represent the lowest mark of his career. Defensive metrics are imperfect and noisy, sure, but confronted with these changes, there’s probably some signal worth analyzing.

For this article, I’ll be focusing on Baseball Savant’s Outs Above Average. Our in-house metric is UZR, but it unfortunately doesn’t account for infield shifts, which will become relevant later on. Read the rest of this entry »


Resurgent Brothers a Key Contributor in Cubs’ Bullpen

The bullpen can be a weird place. While lineups and rotations across the big leagues have some degree of stability (albeit one threatened by recent spikes in injury rates), the amount of roster turnover in bullpens varies greatly. It’s a place where former failed starters and pitchers trying to get one last chance at the big leagues often find a home. Tyler Matzek and Daniel Bard were the latest reclamation projects turned into high-leverage relief pitchers when they returned to form last season. For Bard, it had been a full seven seasons since his last appearances in a big league game (2013 with the Red Sox). His performance earned him 2020 Comeback Player of the Year honors in the National League and a $2.9 million one-year deal to return in 2021 as the Rockies’ closer.

Is this unusual? Bard’s story certainly is, but it’s pretty typical for teams to pan for gold via non-roster invitees to spring training. Spring training rosters are limited to 75 players; teams will almost always fill this with the entirety of their 40-man roster supplemented by minor league players close to big league action and a handful of NRIs competing for a spot on the roster. Most NRIs don’t pan out and are either released or end up in the minor leagues, but occasionally they suit up for Opening Day.

Rex Brothers falls into this category. Now in his third attempt to recapture his form as the Rockies’ setup man and closer from 2011-15, Brothers looks like he’s figured some things out with the Cubs. Heading into yesterday, he’d made 28 appearances for a total of 24.1 innings (all stats are as of June 23). Those figures are the highest totals for Brothers since the 2014 season. In those innings he’s struck out 40 batters, leading to a career-best 38.5 K% and K-BB% of 25%. That K-BB% is good for 31st out of 200 relievers with at least 20 innings pitched. So far it certainly reads like a success story for the Cubs.

Brothers is no spring chicken (2021 is his age-33 season) but he has logged relatively few innings (293.2 total at the major league level and only 51.1 over the last five seasons), which may inspire some optimism that he has more left in the tank than his age would suggest. But the question remains as to whether he has staying power in the Cubs’ bullpen. I made mention of Bard and Matzek earlier. Matzek reappeared last season as a reliever for the Braves after a brief stint as a starting pitcher for the Rockies (the team that drafted him) back in 2014-15. His performance has regressed from his resurgent 2020, but Matzek has managed to keep his successful run going with an ERA of 3.33 and a FIP of 2.98 in ‘21. Bard has similarly maintained form. Matzek and Bard represent the high point for these kinds of reclamation projects. While unlikely, it’s far from unprecedented.

But let’s get back to Brothers. A reliever his whole career, he has relied primarily on a two-pitch mix of a four-seam fastball and a slider. His best pitch is his four-seamer, which he uses about two-thirds of the time; it tops out around 97. According to Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic, Brothers played through shoulder pain in Colorado, which he admits was a mistake. The shoulder ailment eventually led to surgery following his 2016 release from the Cubs, who had acquired him from the Rockies in ‘15. His road back to the majors has taken time. As is the case for many pitchers who go through injuries, his mechanics took a turn for the worse as his body compensated for the weak throwing shoulder. His first crack at a comeback was granted by the Atlanta Braves where he bounced back and forth between the majors and the Braves’ Double- and Triple-A affiliates. Never a strength for Brothers, his lack of control was at the heart of his struggles to get back to baseball’s highest level. He put it together briefly in 2017 when he pitched 23.2 innings for a 3.66 FIP but an awful 7.23 ERA. In 2018, however, Brothers walked 44 batters in 40.2 innings, including a whopping 17 wild pitches during that span. He faced a mere two batters at the major league level and walked both of them.

Another opportunity in 2019 with the Yankees followed by time with the Cubs in ‘20 yielded similar results: Brothers could not throw strikes consistently enough. He credits time working on his mechanics at the alternate site last season for his improved control. Look at the following GIFs. The first one is from 2020 and the second from ‘21. Notice how last season he was reaching his throwing arm down below his waist; this season his arm action is much shorter and more compact in comparison.

In his interview with The Athletic, Brothers expressed the impact his arm action also had on his lower half, stating, “My knee started caving towards home plate, which was forcing me down the mound way too soon. It was an inconsistent release point, and I was just feeling bad.”

Statcast captures pitcher release points with every pitch. Looking at Brothers’ pitch data from the last two seasons, there’s evidence that the improvements in his delivery have helped him find consistency in his release point. The chart below shows pitch release locations for the 2020 and ‘21 seasons.

The release point distribution is quite different for the two seasons. The standard deviation for release point of his pitches in 2020 was 0.266 feet in the X direction and 0.103 feet in the Z direction; in ‘21, the standard deviation decreased significantly to .186 and .076. This holds true for both fastballs and sliders. He’s thrown over five times as many pitches this season, but even taking a random sample of data of the same size (74 pitches) as his data from 2020 the improvement in consistency is still evident.

Let’s be clear, Brothers still carries a BB/9 rate in excess of 5.00, but his propensity for strikeouts makes that number more palatable. Improving his release point seems to have allowed him to regain enough control to effectively leverage his strikeout ability. Brothers has thrown 36.6% of his pitches in the strike zone this season, tied for 12th lowest among relievers with at least 20 innings pitched. During his most effective seasons in Colorado (2011-13), he threw 44.9% of his pitches in the strike zone. He’s also allowing way more fly balls now (46.8% this season) than his days in Colorado (average of 32.6% from 2011-13), which has been detrimental to his home run rate (1.11 HR/9 allowed this season) although he’s right around league average. This season’s version of Brothers is a tad less effective than his younger self, but his 3.57 FIP makes him an above average reliever and a reliable left-handed option for the Cubs.

The Cubs have the fourth best bullpen in the majors by WAR at 3.2. Outside of Craig Kimbrel, who is also having a resurgent season, their relievers are not hyped prospects or big name free agent signings. It seems that the front office and coaching staff have found the ability to make the most of the pieces they have. Working with Brothers to rekindle some of the success he had early in his career is just an example of how many of the Cubs’ relievers are churning out career-best performances.


FanGraphs Audio: Eric Longenhagen and Dan Szymborski Do Frisk Assessment

Episode 928

This week on the podcast, Eric Longenhagen and Dan Szymborski go the distance to discuss the wild state of affairs in baseball.

The pair begin by touching on the latest sticky substance drama, including some frisky business now that on-field checks have begun. Max Scherzer and Sergio Romo were most visibly unhappy, and Eric and Dan agree that the way things have been handled has resulted in a not-great look for baseball.

Following that, they dive into the wonderful world of Wander Franco’s long-anticipated debut. The game’s top prospect likely has a solid career ahead of him, but where does he compare to other former No. 1s who have recently debuted? Eric and Dan also go into how Willy Adames is doing just fine in Milwaukee while Keston Hiura is not.

Finally, the duo talks about continuing issues across the minor leagues before considering some doomsday scenarios for the Mets.

Read the rest of this entry »


Let’s Hear From a Pair of Red Sox Prospects

Triston Casas and Grant Williams are teammates with distinctly different profiles. Boston’s first-round pick in the 2018 draft, the 21-year-old Casas is a 6-foot-4, 250-pound first baseman who is No. 2 on our Red Sox Top Prospects list, and No. 42 on our updated Top 100 Prospects list. Williams is unranked. A 25-year-old middle infielder who lasted until the 310th pick of the 2018 draft, he hit in the nine-hole when the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs hosted the Somerset Patriots on Wednesday night. Befitting his stature, Casas batted third.

Prior to the game, I spoke to both players about their respective hitting approaches.

———

Casas possesses plus power, but he doesn’t present as a pure slugger. Patience is a big part of his M.O., as is a willingness to choke up on the bat when contact is at a premium. The lefty swinger cited Joey Votto as his role model when he was featured in a January 2020 Sunday Notes column, and as he acknowledged on Wednesday, that remains the case.

I asked Casas if he’s changed as a hitter since entering pro ball three years ago.

“I’d like to think I haven’t, but I have a lot,” responded the Plantation, Florida product. “I kind of battle that. I fight every single day to make adjustments and become the best hitter that I can, but to also apply what I’ve been doing my whole life. So I like to say that I haven’t changed too much, but at the same time, I have.”

I asked the up-and-coming youngster if he could elaborate. Read the rest of this entry »


Chin Music, Episode 19: Bring Your Knock-Knock Jokes Here

Sure, let’s podcast again. Chin Music returns with special co-host Grant Brisbee of The Athletic, who joins me as we talk about baseball and finally don’t devote an entire episode to the sticky stuff. Ok, we talk about it a little bit but also discuss the arrival of Wander Franco and the remarkable fun that is the National League West so far this season. We lost our scheduled special guest due to travel issues, but Spin Rate host Drew Fairservice joins us on short notice from The Great White North to discuss the Toronto Blue Jays and the state of the pandemic in Canada. Then it’s your emails, some time figuring out how Grant got to where he is, documentaries from Singapore, podcasts on hip-hop, and the worst Jeff Goldblum impression ever recorded.

As always, we hope you enjoy and thank you for listening.

Music by Citric Dummies.

Have a question you’d like answered on the show? Ask us anything at chinmusic@fangraphs.com. Read the rest of this entry »


Effectively Wild Episode 1711: Strip Search

EWFI
Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about MLB’s much-maligned All-Star Game uniforms and a pair of odd games, discuss the highs and lows of the first few days of MLB’s enforced foreign-substance ban (with special attention to Max Scherzer, Joe Girardi, and Sergio Romo), review Wander Franco’s debut and note the less-hyped arrivals of Lars Nootbaar and knuckleballer Mickey Jannis, relate a Jesse Winker home-run prediction, and close by exploring the ways in which the first-place Houston Astros, to the dismay of many Astros haters, are still very good.

Audio intro: Slothrust, "New Red Pants"
Audio outro: The Donnas, "Hot Pants"

Link to ASG uniforms
Link to Angels game story
Link to Nats-Phillies game story
Link to Manfred on sticky-stuff enforcement
Link to Rizzo on Girardi
Link to video of Scherzer and Romo
Link to video of Ohtani inspection
Link to Simpsons scene
Link to Ben on Jannis and the knuckleball
Link to Javier’s headshot
Link to Zach Kram on the Astros

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When Lightning Strikes Thrice

The first time I saw a triple play, I was keeping score for one of my brother’s All-Star games. I don’t remember exactly how old I was, but for some reason 14 sounds about right, so let’s go with that. My exact age at the time is less important than the fact that I was old enough to have scored hundreds of baseball games. I had spent countless afternoons at practices with my dad and my brother. I had seen a lot of baseball and I knew enough to be momentarily confused by what had just happened.

The thing about a triple play is that even if you are paying complete attention to the game, there is a really good chance you are going to miss something. Maybe you catch one or two of the outs, but the play develops so quickly that if you are even remotely distracted when the ball is hit, it’s probably going to take a second for your brain to register that an ideal scoring situation for one team has been erased in mere seconds by the other.

You can spend your whole life watching your favorite team and never see them turn a triple play. I’ve been a Cubs fan for over 30 years, and in that time, the Cubs have turned just four triple plays. The only one I caught live was this disputed triple play from 2020, which many people rightly pointed out would have been overturned if the Reds had been able to review it. It was the first triple play the Cubs had turned in 23 years. It’s the only triple play I’ve ever seen them turn in real time and even though it’s on the record books, it didn’t really happen. There is a very real chance I could spend another decade or two waiting to cross “saw the Cubs turn a triple play” off my list. Read the rest of this entry »