After losing Gerrit Cole in free agency after the 2019 World Series and Justin Verlander to a torn UCL just six innings into the season, the Astros found themselves in desperate need of pitching help last year. Zack Greinke helped fill the void left by Charlie Morton’s departure, and Lance McCullers Jr. returned after missing all of 2019, but besides those two pitchers, there were more questions than answers in Houston’s rotation.

Insert a quintet of young pitchers with varying degrees of experience: Framber Valdez (107.2 MLB innings to his name), José Urquidy (41 MLB innings and a stellar upper-minors track record), and three pitchers with a lot of blank space on their résumés in Cristian Javier, Enoli Paredes, and Luis Garcia. With the help of these five and some clever piggybacking, the Astros overcame a mediocre regular-season record to oust Minnesota in the wild-card round and Oakland in the ALDS before falling to Tampa Bay in the ALCS.

Of that group, I want to focus on Garcia, for two reasons. First, he is the team’s current leader in pitching WAR, narrowly edging out Greinke, with a 2.82 ERA supported by a 28.1% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. Second, his rise to the big-league club was the most surprising of the five guys I mentioned above. He signed with Houston out of Venezuela at age 20 (which is old for an international amateur) for a mere $20,000. He had not pitched above high-A before his MLB call-up, though he did dominate the opposition at every level. In 2019, he saw a velocity bump and struck out almost 36% of the hitters he faced in 43 innings pitched at low-A, then whiffed 39.4% of batters he faced in 65.2 innings one level up.

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Because there are so few minor league baseball games on Mondays this year, you’ll see me play with the format of the Tuesday Daily Prospect Notes. I’m lucky that the top prospect in the sport, 20-year-old Tampa Bay Rays infielder Wander Franco, is likely to debut against the Red Sox this evening. The Franco report from the Rays/Top 100 lists still applies, and folks looking for a general overview of his talent should go jam on the clipboard here and read that if you haven’t already done so. Today I’m going to be breaking down his 2021 season using Synergy Baseball, a pitch-by-pitch video software program that is often used by MLB teams.

We made a decision to allocate scouting travel budget toward Synergy Baseball during the offseason, when the timeline for vaccines was still hazy but the presence of COVID was not. Unsure if/how much I’d be travelling again this year, we funneled money into Synergy in case I could not. It was initially useful for watching action in foreign pro leagues and during Spring Training as I worked on prospect lists, but Kevin Goldstein and I also have access to pitch-by-pitch video from Triple-A games (not the whole minors, just Triple-A), as well as metadata from each pitch. I can’t share video with you here (or anywhere) or I’d be in violation of MiLB.tv terms of service, but I can share with you some of the Franco metadata to illustrate the specific nature of his skills and put them in a big league context.

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Chas McCormick has already exceeded expectations. A 21st-round pick in the 2017 draft out of Division II Millersville University, the 26-year-old outfielder is getting semi-regular playing time with the Houston Astros, and he’s been sneaky good. His .226 batting average is nothing to write home about, but his 114 wRC+ and 0.5 WAR (as of Sunday night) are those of a rookie contributing to MLB’s highest-scoring team. That couldn’t have been predicted a few years ago — or even a few months ago. Coming into the current campaign, the West Chester, Pennsylvania native was No. 18 on our Astros Top Prospects list.

McCormick discussed his underdog-makes-good story when Houston visited Fenway Park earlier this month.

———

David Laurila: In many ways, you’re a classic overachiever. What is your background in that respect?

Chas McCormick: “When I was younger, like high school — even before — and maybe a little bit of college, I was never the best. If I had to try out for a team… I wasn’t very good at tryouts. I got cut from some summer-ball teams because I wasn’t the fastest player, I didn’t have the strongest arm, I didn’t hit the ball the farthest. I wasn’t the biggest guy, either. That’s why I really didn’t get Division 1 looks, just a couple Division II, Division III. But the more I played, especially in college, the more people realized that I was a gamer. I wouldn’t take batting practice and have scouts saying, ‘Wow, he’s putting on a show,’ it was more, ‘You’ve got to watch this kid play nine innings.’”

Laurila: When did you realize you had a legitimate shot to play pro ball?

McCormick: “Not in high school. I was thinking about playing basketball in college — or baseball — but again, just Division II, Division III. I wasn’t really on anyone’s radar. So out of high school, I wasn’t really thinking about pro baseball at all. Then I got to college, and that was [as] a pitcher. I was a little erratic and didn’t throw strikes very well, so that ended quickly.

“Anyway, freshman year, an outfielder got hurt and I ended up starting. I played really well — I batted leadoff a couple times and hit close to .340 — but I still didn’t think I could play pro ball because I didn’t really have the power. Then I ended up hitting some home runs in my sophomore year, and had a good average as well — I hit around .350. So after my sophomore year, I was like, ‘You know what? Maybe I could play professional baseball.’”

Laurila: You then didn’t get drafted after your junior year. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and guest co-host Mike Ferrin of MLB Network Radio and the Diamondbacks’ broadcast crew discuss the D-Backs’ 17-game losing streak and more extended stretch of futility before bantering about Shohei Ohtani’s Player of the Week Award-winning performance and the potential for Ohtani to own All-Star Week, the call-up of (and expectations for) Rays infielder and MLB top prospect Wander Franco, and Manny Machado getting distracted by the wave. Then (50:09) Ben talks to biomechanics expert, former Dodgers analyst, and current CEO of Reboot Motion Dr. Jimmy Buffi about how sticky stuff enhances performance, whether Tyler Glasnow was right about the foreign-substance crackdown increasing injury risk, why injury rates are up this season, and whether Jacob deGrom’s ever-escalating velocity and series of minor injuries are causes for concern. Lastly (1:25:37), Ben talks to Rays pitching prospect Graeme Stinson about the lefty’s experience with sticky stuff, the wisdom and effects of the enforced foreign-substance ban, the experimental pickoff rules that have boosted base stealing in A ball, housing and nutrition in the minor leagues, and the founding and future of StatStak, the performance-tracking company he helped start during the pandemic.

Audio intro: Grateful Dead, "Loser"
Audio interstitial 1: Electric Light Orchestra, "Hold on Tight"
Audio interstitial 2: Dave Clark and Friends, "Rub it In"
Audio outro: Sharon Van Etten, "Seventeen"

Link to list of longest losing streaks
Link to Peacock plate appearance
Link to Peacock backstory
Link to Ohtani Player of the Week highlights
Link to Ohtani’s Coors BP
Link to FanGraphs Rays prospect ranking
Link to Franco origin story
Link to all-time list of youngest MLB players
Link to video of Machado and the wave
Link to Buffi’s first podcast appearance
Link to Glasnow comments
Link to Mike Sonne’s fatigue research
Link to Buffi’s elbow/forearm study
Link to Reboot Motion website
Link to 2021 experimental rules
Link to Jayson Stark on A-ball base stealing
Link to Stinson’s Twitter account
Link to StatStak website
Link to Diamondbacks game story
Link to article on sticky stuff and batted balls
Link to average 4-seam spin rate by day chart
Link to Meg on Lind
Link to Maldonado video

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These are notes on prospects from Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments here.

Reid Detmers, LHP, Los Angeles Angels
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Rocket City Age: 21 Org Rank: 3  FV: 45+
Line: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 14 K
Notes
Detmers’ delivery starts out somewhat slow, almost nonchalant, but ends with an explosive arm action that hitters seem to have trouble gauging or reacting to. In the first game of the Trash Pandas’ Father’s Day double-header against the Biloxi Shuckers, Detmers got to work right away with an immaculate inning, fanning his first three hitters on nine pitches. He went on to strike out a total of fourteen Shuckers in his six innings of work before handing the game over to reliever Oliver Ortega for the save. Detmers is only the fourth pitcher in the history of the Angels’ minor league system to strike out 14 in a game — interestingly, only four days after his teammate Cooper Criswell became the third to do so.

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The biggest storyline in baseball this week was the announced crackdown on pitchers using foreign substances on the mound. It’s still too soon to tell how this might change the results on the field, but the early research suggests it could have wide reaching effects. Scoring is up in June league-wide, but that may be the normal result of warmer weather.

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 Dodgers have finally reclaimed the top spot in these rankings by winning 10 of their last 12. They’re about to get a lot healthier, too; Max Muncy and Cody Bellinger should be activated from the IL this coming week, and Corey Seager could start a rehab assignment as early as next weekend. That’s good, because their upcoming schedule is tough, with series against the Padres, Cubs, and Giants on the docket.

The Giants’ offense was absolutely dominant last week, beneficiaries of playing the Diamondbacks and Phillies at home; they scored 59 runs in seven games with Brandon Belt and Mike Yastrzemski leading the way. Those two combined to collect 18 hits last week, including eleven extra-base hits and five home runs. But one of the biggest reasons for San Francisco’s continued success has been the vast improvement of its bullpen. At the end of April, Giants relievers had the second worst park- and league-adjusted FIP in baseball. Since that point, they’ve lowered their FIP- to 98 and their ERA- to 81.

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On Sunday afternoon, I was working on a piece about why the trade market doesn’t heat up until July, and per habit, I chose a game to have on in the background while I work. I usually flip between them, focusing on where the action is based on the score and runners on base, but with the day just starting, I began with Oakland at New York. The A’s had Sean Manaea on the mound, which made me think about his 2013 spring, and a wasted trip to Normal, Illinois.

It’s easy to forget that Manaea entered that spring as a candidate for the top pick in the draft. He was a six-foot-five, physical left-hander who entered Indiana State with a mid-80s fastball but suddenly was up to 98 mph in the Cape Cod League two years later. There, he was universally seen as the best prospect during the 2012 season, putting up a 1.22 ERA with 85 strikeouts in 51.2 innings and allowing just 21 hits and seven walks.

Manaea was living up to expectations early that spring, but things took a turn for the worse on March 15 in a game at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Manaea couldn’t find a comfortable landing spot for his front foot and irritated his right hip. The injury would affect him for the remainder of the season; he missed starts and at times was scratched at the last moment. When he did pitch, he performed quite well, but the stuff was also down, and considerably so at times. Figuring out where he would (and more importantly should) go in the draft was becoming the biggest challenge of the tear.

The Missouri Valley Conference Tournament was set to begin on Tuesday, April 20 at Duffy Bass Field in Normal, Illinois, on the campus of Illinois State University. Indiana State would take on Creighton in the first game, with first pitch at 10:00 AM and Manaea scheduled to pitch. It was quite possibly the last chance to see him before making a multi-million dollar decision on the player, and I was asked to attend.

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In no world is Juan Soto is having a bad year. Through games played on Saturday, he has more walks than strikeouts, a 128 wRC+, and a .272/.404/.426 triple slash in 240 plate appearances. He’s been worth 1.6 WAR in 58 games, thanks at least in part due to improved defense; ZiPS projects him to add another 3.5 wins the rest of the way, which would result in a career-high 5.1 WAR. Even at his current pace of 4.5 WAR, Soto would end the season as one of the more valuable players in baseball.

By his standards, however, Soto is actually having a bit of a down year. That 128 wRC+ I mentioned? That is just above his worst mark in any 58-game stretch (127) of his entire career. It still represents great production in a vacuum, and the fact that his worst wRC+ still is 127 is just another way to underscore his greatness. But at the same time, it still leaves us with a lot of questions, none more important than this: Why has Soto seen such a notable decrease in performance?

The answer might seem somewhat simple: He’s hitting far too many groundballs. Soto currently has a 55.3% groundball rate, seventh-highest in the majors. The fact that he’s still posting a 128 wRC+ in spite of that is borderline absurd; of the 30 qualified hitters with at least a 48% groundball rate, he has the highest wRC+, a testament to his phenomenal plate discipline and frequency of hard contact.

As a result of all of these grounders, Soto is embarking on Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 2020 journey. But while Vlad Jr. is currently elevating and celebrating this year, Soto is grounding and outing. Bad attempt at a rhyme aside, his groundballs mostly turn into outs. The ones that aren’t outs? They are singles, and they the reason why he has experienced a personal power outage. In his last 50 games, he has a .137 ISO, another career low for a sample that large.

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