In Tuesday’s otherwise lopsided rout by the Phillies, Nick Castellanos collected a pair of hits off Aaron Nola. With that, he extended his hitting streak to 18 games, thus surpassing his personal best and breaking a tie with Jose Altuve for the majors’ longest streak of this season. The Reds’ right fielder isn’t just hot all of a sudden, however. He’s been raking since Opening Day, and entered Thursday with his .361 batting average, .644 slugging percentage, 185 wRC+, and 2.9 WAR all sitting atop the NL leaderboards, a big step up from last year’s disappointing campaign.

The 29-year-old Castellanos, who signed a four-year, $64 million deal with the Reds in January 2020, hit just .225/.298/.486 in his first season in Cincinnati. He did play every game and bopped 14 homers while helping the Reds to their first playoff appearance since 2013, but his hot start (.340/.411/.840 through 14 games) quickly faded. His final 102 wRC+ was his lowest mark since 2015, his 28.5% strikeout rate represented a career high, and all told, his 0.4 WAR made it a pretty forgettable season.

Castellanos turned the page on 2020 by homering and doubling off the Cardinals’ Jack Flaherty on Opening Day and adding three more homers (plus two doubles and a triple) in the Reds’ next five games; he didn’t strike out for the first time until the team’s fifth game of the season. That week was a particularly colorful one, as his hop-skip-bat-flip sequence on Opening Day led to a retaliatory hit-by-pitch the next day, followed by an in-your-face flexing gesture after he came around to score, and then a bench-clearing brawl and a two-game suspension that made the powers that be look like stick-in-the-muds.

As silly as the suspension was, it halted Castellanos’ brief slump; he resumed raking upon returning, collecting 10 hits (including two homers) over his next six games. On May 2, he went 5-for-6 against the Cubs, with two homers as well as a walk-off RBI single in the 10th inning. On May 12, he began his hitting streak by going 2-for-4 with a walk against the Pirates. Over his 18-game jag, he’s hit .464/.532/.710 with three homers in 79 plate appearance, and overall he’s at .361/.416/.644 with 12 homers. Read the rest of this entry »

At the beginning of May, I wrote two articles about the slightly-deadened baseball’s effect on league-wide home run rates. The conclusion was pretty much exactly what you’d expect: A bouncier ball with more drag did reduce home runs, particularly among softer-hit balls at lower launch angles. In 2019, these events were the wall scrapers that barely went out of the yard. In 2021, these events are now doubles and outs, with the increase in fly outs likely contributing (at least somewhat) to baseball’s diminished run environment overall.

There were a handful of outstanding questions that I still had, one of which was the impact of the new baseball on a ballpark-by-ballpark basis. Though league-wide trends are certainly an interesting and informative way to see the effects of a new baseball on run scoring, it is also important to examine in which parks hitters are having a more difficult time getting the ball into the seats. That allows us to understand better how park effects may have been altered to different degrees as a result of MLB’s switch to the new baseball.

But it’s not just the baseball that is contributing here. MLB reportedly added humidors to five stadiums for the 2021 season, bringing the total league-wide to 10. The Rockies, Diamondbacks, Mariners, Mets, and Red Sox already had humidors in their stadiums pre-2021, but which five teams are new to that list has yet to be disclosed. We can only guess which parks now have them, but it is important to keep in mind that the ball is not the only difference.

Also important to remember when looking at ballpark-level data: The players on the home team make a huge difference in determining home run rates. It’s entirely possible that, between 2019 and ’21, a team added home run hitters to its lineup or acquired home run-adverse pitchers for its staff, or the opposite could also be true. To mitigate these effects, I only analyzed a specific slice of fly balls: those hit at an exit velocity at or above 95.0 mph, at an exit velocity below 110.0 mph, and at a launch angle below 30 degrees — the very fly balls most impacted by the new baseball in my prior analysis. I also only included fly balls hit in games on or before May 31 to control for weather effects. (That is why I am comparing 2019 to ’21.)

Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays have been one of the hottest teams in the majors the past few months and have surged to the top of the American League East standings mostly on the back on the club’s offense. Since May 15, the team has posted a combined 132 wRC+, a figure that would easily lead baseball over this span if it weren’t for the Blue Jays (who boast a 145 wRC+). Given their propensity to not invest in their club’s payroll at levels even close to league average, the Rays often have the feeling of a faceless club. But they do have a few notable position players who you would expect to be leading the charge as they have been blitzing the league.

Without looking, which player is leading the team in WAR? Is it postseason folk-hero Randy Arozarena? What about Austin Meadows or Brandon Lowe who have both led the team in position player WAR in recent seasons? The answer, to my surprise, is utility infielder Joey Wendle with 1.7 WAR.

Wendle was traded to the Rays from the Athletics for a Player To Be Named Later following the 2017 season. In parts of four seasons with the Rays including 2021, Wendle has compiled 7.3 WAR in 1,163 plate appearances, which prorates to about 4.1 WAR per 650 plate appearances (a proxy for a normal season with regular playing time). He is a player who is likely anonymous to the casual fan mostly due to his deployment. As part of the Rays infielder mob, he has only stepped up to the plate on 545, 263, and 184 occasions the past three seasons (note that the 184 PAs came during the pandemic-shortened season). And you never know where to look for him; in his Rays tenure, he has appeared mostly at second and third base but also at shortstop and in left field. One might call him the quintessential Rays player. Wendle is versatile and quietly productive. Read the rest of this entry »

12:04

Dan Szymborski: OMG ITS CHAT TIME

12:06

Dan Szymborski: That was my screwup (which I’ve fixed). My brain was a little fried and I as trying to compare the excellence to full season ERAs to show how high they ranked, but I messed up the talking point and ranked it *with* the full seasons instead of contrasting

12:06

Dan Szymborski: And didn’t bring 1981, 1994, 1995 back in

12:06

Dan Szymborski: Everything else should be solid though

Read the rest of this entry »

The Starting Pitcher Probables Grid and Schedule Grid are the latest additions to our RosterResource collection at FanGraphs. They’re also the last of the features that remained on the RosterResource website. Moving all of the content from RosterResource to FanGraphs without losing any functionality, while also making some obvious improvements, is what I’ve called “Phase 1” of this project. Special thanks to Sean Dolinar for working so hard to put all of this into action.

“Phase 2,” which will begin in the near future, will involve us taking all of the feedback and suggestions from readers and making additional upgrades to all of the RosterResource content.

I discussed our newest features on Wednesday’s episode of The RosterResource Show. Read the rest of this entry »

Rick Kranitz knows the art of pitching. Now in his third season as the pitching coach for the Atlanta Braves, he’s been tutoring hurlers for over three decades, with roughly half of those years spent at the big-league level. Prior to assuming his current position in December 2018, the 62-year-old “Kranny” served in that role for the Florida Marlins, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, and Philadelphia Phillies.

Kranitz talked pitching when the Braves visited Fenway Park last week.

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David Laurila: Pitching has never been better. Does that make a pitching coach’s job any easier?

Rick Kranitz: “I wouldn’t say it’s easier. Number one, this is a very hard game. A lot of it is built on failure — you can make a good pitch and something doesn’t happen quite right — but you still have to go out there and execute. The biggest thing for me is getting them to believe in who they are and what they can do. It’s a lot of mental stuff, having them prepared to execute what they need to execute.

“A lot of hitters — in recent history, for sure — have the same swing paths, which we can attack similarly. But there are also guys… like this Boston club we’re playing now. They’re very difficult, because they do a lot of different things. They have a lot of situational hitters who look for pitches, so you can’t just do the same thing over and over again. But I think I know what you’re alluding to. Back in the day, it was ill-advised to throw three of the same pitches in the same area. Nowadays, with the swing path, you can get after that a little bit more against a lot of guys. For sure.”

Laurila: Is that a big part of why your staff dominated the Cincinnati Reds last October? Read the rest of this entry »

Mike Shildt had a decision to make. It was only the first inning, but the Brewers were all over Daniel Ponce de Leon. They’d already scored three times, and had runners on second and third for number eight hitter Luis Urías. A hit here could break the game open, so Shildt took a risk and intentionally walked Urías. With a pitcher batting next, maybe he could salvage the inning.

There was just one problem: Daniel Ponce de Leon was pitching. His 11.6% walk rate this year has actually lowered his career mark. Not only that, but he’d already walked a batter unintentionally this inning, though it’s unclear whether that’s predictive. Either way, though, whoops:

Maybe that was a strike, and maybe it wasn’t. In any case, it turned into a run, and the game eventually turned into a Brewers rout. The Cardinals scored only three runs; as it turns out, the first inning was all Milwaukee needed. Urías didn’t have a hit on the day, not that that’s a particularly telling statistic.

Normally, I’d break down the pros and cons of Shildt’s decision in minute detail. Avoiding Urías and his career .318 OBP to face a pitcher seems good. Turning a walk into a run with Ponce de Leon on the mound seems bad. It’s certainly not a slam dunk in either direction. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday night, the Dodgers and Cardinals began a three-game series in Chavez Ravine. Los Angeles had just been soundly defeated in a four-game set against the Giants over the weekend and had fallen to third in the NL West. Meanwhile, the Cardinals were barely hanging on to the division lead in the NL Central and were entering the tail end of a long, 10-game road trip.

In the top of the sixth inning, St. Louis scored three runs on two home runs off of Trevor Bauer to take a 3-2 lead. The Dodgers came right back in the bottom half of the inning, loading the bases and scoring the tying run off a bases loaded walk to Will Smith. Génesis Cabrera then struck out Gavin Lux for the second out, bringing up Chris Taylor. Taylor wound up battling Cabrera in a 14-pitch at-bat that ended with a bases-clearing double. The play was the second biggest swing in win probability in the game — Dylan Carlson’s two-run home run in the top half of the inning was the biggest — and it gave the Dodgers a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

This epic at-bat was the turning point in the game but it also serves as a perfect example of how Taylor has adjusted his approach at the plate. Back in 2017, Taylor broke out after languishing in the Mariners farm system as a slap-hitting, glove-first middle infield prospect. After compiling a not-very-nice 69 wRC+ across three partial seasons and just over 300 plate appearances, he posted a 126 wRC+ that year with a huge spike in power output. A swing change to generate more contact in the air was the catalyst for that first breakout.

Taylor struggled to replicate that same level of success over the next two seasons; his wRC+ dropped to 111 over the next two years, though he continued to be an extremely valuable piece of the Dodgers roster due to his positional flexibility. Last year, he increased his walk rate by more than three points and had his most productive season at the plate, pushing his wRC+ up to 132. He’s been even better this year; his 149 wRC+ is 18th among all 144 qualified batters. Read the rest of this entry »

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

Adrian Hernandez, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays
Level & Affiliate: Low-A Dunedin  Age: 21   Org Rank: NR   FV: 35
Line: 3 IP (relief), 1 H, 1 BB, 0 R, 7 K

Notes
The 21-year-old Mexican righty induced 14 swings and misses last night, per BaseballSavant, by far the most in the game and an especially high number for someone who only pitched three innings. Of the 52 pitches Hernandez threw last night, a whopping 24 of them were changeups, which is how he garnered most of those whiffs. Interestingly, Hernandez’s changeup is of the high-spin variety and tends to finish to his glove side, which at first glance made me wonder if it was being labeled correctly by Savant, but this is indeed Hernandez’s changeup and it has been very effective. His strike-throwing has been a bit of an issue this season and there’s little body projection here, but Hernandez is a young-ish arm with an out pitch and viable arm strength, so he’s worth monitoring. Read the rest of this entry »

There are a lot of ways you can introduce a person. You can talk about their appearance, traits, maybe even their likes or dislikes. Tasked with breaking the ice on Marlins reliever Richard Bleier, though, this is how I would start. From 2016 to ’19, here’s his yearly strikeout rate versus the league average:

Bleier had been famous for not generating strikeouts, zigging when other prolific relievers were zagging. It makes sense when you consider his repertoire, which consisted mostly of a sinker, a cutter, and the occasional changeup or slider. The sinker led the charge, inducing a copious amount of grounders, while the other offerings were mixed in to throw hitters off-guard. The strategy worked, too. Bleier boasted a 1.97 ERA and 3.59 FIP in 119 innings between 2016 and ’18, and while his 2019 returned uncharacteristic results (a 5.32 ERA and 4.19 FIP), nothing suggested a fatal flaw. Sometimes, you have a bad year.

I’ve established Bleier as someone who thrives on weak contact. But you’ve read the title. One of the perks of being a baseball writer is getting to revisit the FanGraphs pages of players you’re fond of, as work. It’s like catching up with an old friend. I hadn’t paid attention to Bleier in a while, so imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon this development:

Weird, right? Most of the time, this type of breakout is the result of pitchers refining their already electric stuff, like Matt Barnes or Dustin May; their strikeout rates climb from average to great. But consider Bleier, whose dramatic increase has brought him just up to par, with a current strikeout rate of 24.3% that is a mere 0.1 points higher than the league average of 24.2%.

Read the rest of this entry »