Completing a trade before July — a real player-for-player deal that improves one’s playoff chances or prospect depth — can be exceptionally difficult. Sometimes the stars align, as they did in late May when the Rays sent Willy Adames to the Brewers in a deal that included three relievers swapping jerseys, but for the most part, things are quiet until the final weeks before the deadline.

That’s despite the fact that it makes sense for teams to address their needs early. An acquisition to help a team get into the playoffs has a much greater impact if he’s on the roster for 90 games instead of 60; you don’t need to be a quant genius to tell you that’s 50% more games. Buyers want to address their needs yesterday, and obvious sellers have players available immediately. For most, however, the waiting game just makes good business sense in terms of market dynamics. And there’s a new wrinkle to this year’s market that clubs are still figuring out how to navigate — one that will surely add to the delays in getting that stove truly hot.

Why Buyers Wait

Teams looking to make a playoff push are waiting for the market to expand. Depending on how you look at it, there are only six to eight obvious sellers right now, and many of them don’t have much of interest on the available menu. There are an equal amount of teams on the bubble in late June, and these are teams with better rosters full of plenty of players that winning clubs would like to have. The Cubs and Giants, who were seen as two of those bubble teams entering the year, are loaded with excellent players on expiring contracts, but at this point, they’re buyers.

But even with those options off the table, there are plenty of very good players who are not available today but might be two to four weeks from now. What if the Angels go cold and are suddenly willing to talk about Alex Cobb and Andrew Heaney? Are there scenarios where another losing streak for the Nationals makes (gulp) Max Scherzer available?

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Do you know the pitcher with the highest swinging-strike rate in all of baseball this year? Well, it’s Jacob deGrom, no surprises there; it’s such an obvious answer that I probably didn’t need to ask. But do you know the pitcher with the second-highest swinging-strike rate? It’s Raisel Iglesias, and the Angels’ closer has been impressive so far this season, even if his run prevention numbers don’t quite show it yet.

If I could see only one pitching statistic, I’d choose swinging-strike rate. That’s not to say that nothing else matters; that’s decidedly not the case, and there are easy examples of both pitchers who miss bats but aren’t effective and pitchers who are effective without missing bats. But as a first pass, swinging strikes are great. Everything else is contextual. Called strike? That’s because the batter didn’t swing. Foul? It’s not always worth a strike. Groundball? The batter could hit it through the defense or find a gap. A swing and miss is absolute.

You probably don’t need to hear that. Whiffs have been the premium currency of pitching for a long time, long before we had the pitch-level data to track them accurately. I merely thought I’d mention it, because wow does Iglesias miss a lot of bats.

Most closers operate with a common template. Throw a really good fastball — a really good fastball — and spot an unhittable secondary pitch off of it. It’s not always about velocity, though it often is. But it’s almost always about a fastball and one pitch spotted off of it — a guessing game for the hitter with two bad answers.

Iglesias is that pitcher, kind of. Against righties, he relies on a four-seam fastball and a devastating slider. He mixes in a smattering of two-seamers and changeups, but mostly for show; more than 80% of his pitches are fastballs or sliders. Against lefties, Iglesias also relies on two pitches: his fastball and changeup. He throws each of them roughly 40% of the time, with sinkers and sliders comprising the remainder of his offerings.
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We talk a lot about the “face” of baseball — a player who has the look, the excitement, the highlight reel, the things that make them an ideal candidate to be a poster child for the game. “Here,” we say, to would-be fans. “This is what you’re getting when you start to watch that sport.” It could be Bryce Harper with his GIF-worthy hair tosses, or Aaron Judge with his giant frame and home runs. It could be Mookie Betts or Mike Trout, whose talents defy generational lines and who we will likely be talking about for decades after they retire.

As baseball faces go, there are lots of options, even if it feels like no one can agree on them or decide who would be the best candidate to usher in a new generation of fans. Whose poster would these kids want on their walls? Whose stance would they most likely emulate in Little League games? Which superstar can surpass the limitations of team fandom to become beloved by all? It’s a tough request to fulfill, and that’s likely why there are no firm answers.

In recent months, I’ve begun to wonder if what baseball needs is a face at all. Perhaps what baseball needs instead is a voice.

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In 2018, an article by FanGraphs alum Travis Sawchik came with an ominous title: “Go See the Two-Seamer Before It’s Gone.” His instruction alluded to a still-ongoing trend within MLB, whereby numerous pitchers abandon their two-seamers and sinkers in favor of high-spin four-seamers thrown up in the zone. Its impetus boils down to a couple key developments. For one, teams and pitchers wanted to counter batters who adjusted their swing planes to elevate low pitches. They also realized that high fastballs are useful at inducing whiffs, regardless of batters’ tendencies. Furthermore, those fastballs paired well with the breaking ball shapes and locations teams began to covet around the same time.

All in all, the stage was set for a league-wide revolution. You’ve read the stories of how Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow blossomed into superstars using high fastballs. Conversely, you’ve heard the story of how forcing the sinker upon Chris Archer aggravated his struggles. You might have also encountered stories connecting this trend to the recent uptick in strikeouts. The validity of these reports aside, they helped cement a narrative: the four-seamer was in, and the sinker was out.

Three years later, the league doesn’t seem to have veered away from it. Pitchers have located 20% of four-seam fastballs in the upper-third of the zone this season, the highest rate of the Pitch Tracking era (2008 onwards). Meanwhile, two-seamer/sinker usage is the lowest it’s ever been.

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On Monday, MLB umpires began (re-)enforcing Rule 3.02, the clause that bans pitchers from applying foreign substances to the baseball. While we didn’t have any ejections, umpires conducted plenty of searches and managed to do so without needlessly delaying games. Much digital ink has been spilled on this topic since MLB announced the crackdown; just last week, Ben, Jay, and I all weighed in, and comments from the players themselves have run the gamut from measured and reasonable to wildly implausible.

As we enter this new period, the obvious and immediate impulse is to try to measure the impact the rule change is having on the game. We know the teams will: Clubs have paid good coin for elite spin in recent years, and you can bet they’ll be paying close attention to who does and doesn’t lose RPMs as trade season approaches. Fans and writers will surely do the same. Whether assessing league statistics or individual performances, the temptation to compare spin rates against performance will be very powerful in the coming days.

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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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