On Wednesday, Ben Clemens investigated Francisco Lindor’s struggles as a New York Met. The answer was complicated, as in most cases, though he did treat us to a series of tables and graphs. Inspired by the endeavor, I wanted to take a crack at a different NL East superstar: Braves’ first baseman Freddie Freeman.

To be fair, his predicament is hardly as lamentable as Lindor’s. As of writing, Freddie Freeman has a 115 wRC+. There have been stretches where he put up similar levels of production. Nothing seems out of the ordinary – just a good hitter in a dry spell. It’s not like he was going to replicate his abbreviated MVP campaign, anyways.

What is uncharacteristic, however, is his .224 BABIP. It surprised me, considering that he’d sustained a BABIP of .341 from 2010-20, a feat that required a decade of hard-hit line drives and an above-average contact rate. Gary Sánchez, he usually is not. But it’s been an odd year for the first baseman so far, which we can see for ourselves. Below is his 50-game rolling BABIP, stretching back to a few years ago:

At first, the explanation for this seems simple. Freeman currently carries a line drive rate of 24.5%, his lowest since 2011. His groundball rate, in contrast, is the highest since then. Fewer line drives and more grounders is a terrible combo for a hitter’s BABIP – the former land for a hit over half the time; the latter are snagged by infielders. But this raises a question. If Freeman’s current batted ball distribution resembles his in 2011, how did he achieve a .339 BABIP that year? Read the rest of this entry »

Throughout baseball history, starters have thrown fewer pitches and innings than the generation of pitchers who preceded them. The trend dates to at least the early 20th century and has continued almost unabated ever since. Individual throwbacks will occasionally buck league trends — remember when James Shields tossed 11 complete games in 2011? — but history steadily marches on.

While the trend is clear, the curve isn’t linear. Throughout the game’s history, there have been a few accelerating events that have reduced workloads usage much faster than normal. The addition of the designated hitter and new definition of the save rule sent innings per start tumbling in the early 70s, for example.

It’s too early to tell definitively, but we may be on the precipice of another acceleration. We’re only two months into the major league season, and the pandemic and its related fallout are relevant and difficult variables to account for. But while major league starters are approximating the workloads they carried two years ago, minor league starters are not. On any given day in the minor leagues, someone might throw 100 pitches — but probably only one or two pitchers, and they almost certainly don’t reach 110. Remember when 100 pitches was a sort of threshold point for starters? This season, 85 is the new 100.

I went back and looked at every minor league game from May 19 to 24 (these days weren’t cherry picked; it, uh, took me a while to finish this article). In those five days, only four starters — all of whom were Triple-A vets — reached the 100 pitch mark. In that time, there were 12 entire organizations that didn’t have a single pitcher reach even 90 pitches. For the Astros, an organization that won’t let minor leaguers crest 30 pitches in an inning, the high-water mark was 79. For the Phillies, it was 67. In fact, Philadelphia has only had a minor leaguer top 80 pitches once all season.

The pandemic is to blame for some of what we’re seeing. At best, minor league hurlers had a jittery 2020, with intermittent bullpen work and perhaps a bit of summer ball at the alt site, but otherwise nothing between spring training and instructs. After such a weird season, teams are being understandably cautious with their personnel as they ramp back up. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week at Baseball Prospectus, Rob Arthur looked at the rise of advanced defensive positioning since 2015. It turns out that every position has started playing deeper, but — perhaps unsurprisingly — first basemen have moved the least of all. As Arthur writes, “First basemen have barely budged, which makes sense since they are more anchored to the bag.” But this lack of movement feels like a concession that doesn’t necessarily need to be made. The base is fixed, and the defender has to reach it, but a quicker first baseman would be able to stray farther from the anchor. If the lack of an anchor is allowing these other positions to play in more optimal locations, then some of the range that has always been a prerequisite for playing those positions is potentially going to waste. Let’s get some of those more rangy players over to first base, which doesn’t allow for the defender to be so perfectly placed.

The Right-Handed Shift

One of the reasons I’m interested in the positioning of first basemen is how it relates to the current conundrum involving the right-handed shift, about which folks like Tom Tango, Russell Carlton and Ben Lindbergh have written countless words. The short recap is that the publicly available data suggests that the right-handed shift doesn’t really work. And yet, some of the most data-driven teams are the ones that employ the shift the most.

There are a few things that make the right-handed shift different than the more prevalent left-handed one, but what I’m focused on is first base and the existence of that “anchor” that was mentioned earlier. First basemen can only stray off the bag as far as allows them to return safely in time for the throw. Turns out, that isn’t nearly far enough to cover the tendencies of the hitter. Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Montgomery put together a solid outing on Wednesday night. In 6.1 innings of work, he struck out six Rays and walked only two. He did get tagged for five hits, but avoided allowing any home runs, which made the whole package work admirably. He gave up three runs, but with a little defensive prowess, things could have gone even better; two of those three were unearned.

That kind of game happens all the time these days. On the other hand, that particular game has never happened before. That exact box score line — 6.1 innings pitched, six strikeouts, two walks, five hits, no homers, one earned run and three total runs — had never occurred in the more than 380,000 starts since 1913, the first year where earned runs were recorded, as James Smyth pointed out:

? Unique Box Score Line Alert ?

Jordan Montgomery 6.1 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 K

A first out of more than 1.1 million MLB pitching lines in the regular season or postseason since 1901 (thanks @baseball_ref @Stathead)

— James Smyth (@JamesSmyth621) June 3, 2021

I’ll level with you: I had a hard time believing Smyth at first. That line is so middle-of-the-road. Everything about it feels like a common enough occurrence. There are no truly strange parts in that score, nothing that stands out as an obviously rare feat. An easy example: Carlos Martínez also recorded a unique line on Wednesday. His was altogether stranger: 0.2 innings pitched, one strikeout, four walks, and 10 earned runs without a homer or an unearned run. That just sounds like an unprecedented start. Read the rest of this entry »

Has it been 16 episodes already? It has, as Chin Music returns to help get you through the weekend. The co-host chair gets some Midwest time this week, as good friend and good person C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic joins me from Cincinnati to discuss baseball and other stuff. We begin by talking about the ifs and hows of Major League Baseball’s plans to crack down on sticky stuff before moving to a frank and insightful conversation about media and player access in light of this week’s news from The French Open. Then we are joined by special guest Deesha Thosar, Mets beat writer for The New York Daily News, who provides plenty of great insight into the team, both on and off the field. Then it’s the usual with emails and some discussion of C. Trent’s role as president of the BBWAA before finishing with a Moment of Culture.

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

Music by feminist punk icons Spitboy.

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

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Episode 925

On this week’s show, Dan Szymborski and Ben Clemens have an extended chat about baseball happenings before eventually going a little off-topic.

The pair discuss what is going on with the surprising San Francisco Giants, as the club exceeds expectations and tries to make the postseason in a very competitive NL West. Dan and Ben look into what is fueling the Giants’ success and whether they should go all in this summer.

They also contemplate a revitalized Kris Bryant and Javier Báez leading the first-place Cubs, whether Tyler O’Neill can keep it up, and the truly incredible Jacob deGrom, who is trying to make history. Ben and Dan also consider intentionally walking the bases loaded and how early you could pinch-hit for your starting pitcher.

Finally, we hear about the legends of Jerry Wombat and Johan Santa before Dan educates Ben on the official drinks that go along with the most famous horse races.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Los Angeles Angels. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about why “Zombie Runner,” not “Manfred Man,” remains their preferred term for the automatic runner, zombies in general, position player pitchers vs. pitcher hitters, the benefits of forfeits, the increasing rate of pitcher hitters not attempting to put the ball in play, MLB’s bad timing with NFTs, the minor league sticky substance crackdown, and the death of Mike Marshall and the chances of ever seeing another pitcher like him. Then (42:04) they talk to Ethan Singer, the creator of the @UmpScorecards Twitter account and UmpScorecards.com, about how and why he started tracking umpire accuracy, how his audience grew, why assessing umpire performance is complicated, how his methodology has evolved, accuracy vs. consistency, team-level umpiring metrics, fan anger at umps, what the robo zone could look like, his new-feature plans, and more.

Audio intro: Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, "Runner"
Audio interstitial: The Jazz Butcher, "Zombie Love"
Audio outro: Marbles, "Out of Zone"

Link to Bradley PA
Link to Walker PA
Link to data on pitchers not swinging
Link to story about the NFT bubble
Link to story about Gehrig NFT
Link to story about NFTs’ environmental impact
Link to story about minor league suspensions
Link to Joel Sherman on foreign substances
Link to Passan on Marshall
Link to Russell Carleton on pitching roles
Link to Umpire Scorecards on Twitter
Link to Umpire Scorecards website
Link to Ethan’s website

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

Santiago Florez, RHP, Pittsburgh Pirates
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Bradenton  Age: 21   Org Rank: 36   FV: 40
Line: 6 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 10 K

Notes
We’re starting to enter an uncharted evaluation context for young pitchers. Big league fastbll usage has been trending down over the last several years but breaker-heavy approaches to pitching haven’t been as pervasive in the minors during prospect development. Especially for pitchers like Florez, who are at best on the starter/reliever line, teams generally make an effort to try to develop fastball command that will give the prospect a chance to start. Per Savant, Florez got 20 swings and misses last night, most of them on his curveball, which he threw a ton. Of his 84 pitches, only 27 were fastballs. He threw about a dozen changeups, while the rest (nearly half his total pitches) were curveballs. I have conflicting thoughts around increased breaking ball usage — how much of the improved results generated by more breakers is coming from what is essentially per-pitch stuff quality, how much is from increased unpredictability as we exit the era of “establishing the fastball,” and is there a point where so many breaking balls are being thrown that the unpredictability piece regresses? — but seeing it on a Low-A arm forces me to view his performance in an unfamiliar context as the Pirates have a 21-year-old lean into what he’s already good at rather than try to improve what he’s not. Now, for Florez specifically, taking this approach at this point in his developmental track makes sense because even though he’s only 21, he’s Rule 5 eligible this offseason and a year from now all he and the Pirates may care about is how he gets outs coming out of a big league bullpen, which will feature him throwing a ton of his breaking ball. Read the rest of this entry »

Times are tough in Denver. The biggest stories for the Rockies this year have been their trade of their best player (heavily and rightfully criticized), the resignation of Jeff Bridich, and the relocation of this season’s All-Star Game to Coors Field. Okay, that last one is pretty cool, and the Bridich news was good news for Rockies fans. On the field though, it’s been pretty ugly. The Rockies are fourth in the NL West and on pace to lose 99 games, and they’ve gone just 4–22 on the road with only 63 runs scored. But there’s one player donning the purple and black who might finally be breaking out: Ryan McMahon.

Since coming onto the scene in 2017, McMahon has been the subject of more than a few breakout player articles, including Dan Symborski’s piece on the top 2021 candidates to take a step forward. He’s answered the call so far, serving as the lone bright spot for the Rockies in what has been an otherwise dismal season by slashing .259/.313/.507 with 13 homers and 1.3 WAR. These numbers aren’t especially eye-popping for a player who calls Coors Field home, but offensive numbers have been down across the big leagues this season, and while McMahon has played plenty of corner infield in his career, his primary position has been at second, where the bar is a bit lower.

Before we attempt to answer whether or not the breakout is for real, it’s worth looking at what makes McMahon such a tempting choice to develop into a better big league hitter. A big part of the reason is his raw power. Unless your name is Nick Madrigal, it’s usually going to take some serious power potential to get preseason hype. Prior to the 2018 season, McMahon was ranked third in the Rockies’ system, per Eric Longenhagen’s prospect list, with his 60 raw power as his greatest asset. At the major league level, where his batted ball data is more visible than the minor leagues, McMahon has achieved a maximum exit velocity in the 68th percentile or better each season.

Read the rest of this entry »