Adbert Alzolay has been one of the few pleasant surprises for the Cubs this season. Through his first two major league stints across 2019 and ’20, he walked 15% of the batters he faced in 33.2 innings of work, most of which was in the starting rotation. Even when striking out 28.6% of opposing hitters, handing out free passes at such a high rate is not a sustainable way of working through a lineup and keeping runs off the scoreboard and without the aid of a .263 BABIP in those 33.2 innings, Alzolay’s results would have been even more concerning. Meanwhile the Cubs, after years of contending and struggling to develop pitchers internally, were bereft of exciting arms on the right side of the aging curve. This past offseason, ownership refused to spend in any meaningful way and the club was forced to ship out Cy Young candidate Yu Darvish for Zach Davies and a few prospects in the low minors. They did sign Jake Arrieta to a $6.5 million deal coming off a disappointing stint with the Phillies, but that signing represented Chicago’s most significant investment in pitching this offseason. These moves and circumstances meant that Alzolay would need to take a big step forward in 2021 if the Cubs wanted to remain competitive with the Cardinals and Brewers in what seemed to be a winnable AL Central.

But expecting Alzolay to make a substantial leap in terms of his control took some wishful thinking if you were scouting the statline. At his last stop in Triple-A in 2019, Alzolay walked 11% of batters in 65.1 innings. That figure is obviously better than the 15% he posted in his first innings in the majors, but it would still be a below average rate and that was while facing worse competition. For Alzolay to even have an average walk rate, he would have to cut his 2019 Triple-A rate by at least 20%, all while facing better competition. The odds were certainly not in his favor.

Miraculously, he has made the necessary adjustment. In 49.2 innings in 2021, Alzolay is now walking only 5.2% of batters in an environment where the league average is about 9%. Not only has he shaved his previous major-league rate by two thirds, but his 2021 mark now represents an elite figure, one that’s in the 88th percentile of all pitchers per Baseball Savant. Better yet, he has barely sacrificed any strikeouts. As I said in the introduction, Alzolay had a career 28.6% strikeout rate coming into 2021. This season, that rate is still a well-above average at 26.3%, especially relative to other starting pitchers. He has also increased the rate at which he induces groundballs (38.3% prior to this season, 45.7% in 2021), which should offset some of the strikeouts he has lost as he tries to hone his command. All of this has culminated in a 3.81 ERA through nine starts despite a bloated 20% HR/FB rate, the latter figure driving the massive difference between his FIP (4.21) and xFIP (a sterling 3.41). Read the rest of this entry »

Like many of you, I spent a good portion of Memorial Day watching baseball. I started with the Rays and Yankees, and was watching the YES Network feed when rookie shortstop Taylor Walls stepped to the plate. Immediately, the broadcast went to a graphic of who the Rays elected not to call up after they traded Willy Adames to the Brewers: Wander Franco, universally seen as the best prospect in the game, and the red-hot Vidal Bruján. It was a nice little troll, but while so much attention is deservedly paid to the Franco and Jarred Kelenic types before and after they debut, not every rookie has the same kind of prospect pedigree. With that in mind, here are nine prospects who aren’t getting the same kind of hype but are performing at a level that might earn them a big-league look this year. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Luis Urías, the zombie runner, and walk-off wins, a few other aspects of the Will Craig/Javier Báez play, a new stat called the “Boner,” MLB and NFTs, Theo Epstein’s recent comments about making changes to the game, Shohei Ohtani’s player-page traffic and the future of two-way players, the Rays and Rich Hill, how the aftermath of the spitball ban relates to the future of foreign substance use, the definition of a “generational talent,” whether to credit teams or players for positioning, and whether MLB should ban in-game analytics use (and coaching visits), plus a Stat Blast about Trey Mancini and players who’ve accrued the highest-ever percentages of their teams’ runs and RBI.

Audio intro: The Replacements, "Gary’s Got a Boner"
Audio outro: David Newberry, "The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth"

Link to Brewers walk-off game story
Link to Craig’s comment about his boner
Link to Dan in Milwaukee’s field diagram
Link to story about Gehrig NFT
Link to story about Topps NFTs
Link to story about NFTs’ environmental impact
Link to Theo Epstein story
Link to Ben on Ohtani
Link to story about the spitball ban
Link to Pages from Baseball’s Past
Link to Servais “generational player” quote
Link to Tango on sports generations
Link to story about Joe West confiscating card
Link to “lasers in the outfield” story
Link to Stat Blast “Contribution Rate” data
Link to Ben Clemens on Lindor
Link to All-Star Game lawsuit story
Link to second All-Star Game lawsuit story
Link to listener David Newberry’s album

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Normally, I’d write some cutesy introduction to this article, maybe regale you with a fun anecdote from my life or make a bad joke to keep the mood light. Today, there’s no time. Francisco Lindor is hitting poorly this year, and we need to get to the bottom of it.

When stars slump early in the season, it’s often easy to see a culprit. Maybe they’re swinging out of their shoes and running a huge strikeout rate. Maybe they’re victims of bad batted ball luck. Maybe they’re playing hurt. In Lindor’s case, the problem is power. Now 195 plate appearances into the season, he’s hit five doubles and four home runs. Those are both by far the worst rates of his career, and combined with a .216 BABIP, they’ve resulted in a desultory batting line.

Easy, right? Lindor stopped hitting the ball hard, so now he’s bad. Only, he’s not:

So much for the lazy analysis — and to be clear, using average exit velocity is absolutely lazy. Whatever’s going wrong, it’s more complicated than a simple power outage. Read the rest of this entry »

With disastrous free agent signing after disastrous free agent signing, and then the trade of Nolan Arenado, the Rockies have already fallen into irrelevance, even if their 20-34 record isn’t actually the NL West’s worst. As if they needed more problems, star shortstop Trevor Story has been sidelined by inflammation in his right elbow. At a time when his production has already fallen short of expectations, the 28-year-old shortstop’s injury — which recalls a late-2018 scare — could have a significant impact upon his trade value.

According to manager Bud Black, Story began experiencing tightness and pain in his elbow and forearm following a play against the Mets in the second game of a doubleheader last Thursday. Fielding a grounder off the bat of Cameron Maybin in the third inning, he ranged to his left, spun, and threw a one-hopper to first base in time for the out.

Story left the game in the middle of the fourth inning, without fielding another ball or coming to bat. He did not play on Friday, and was placed on the 10-day Injured List on Saturday. With the Rockies in the midst of a week-long road trip to New York and Pittsburgh, the team planned for him to undergo an MRI on Monday, once he returned to Denver, to determine if the injury is more severe. At this writing, the Rockies have yet to share the results with the public, but the early indications are that this isn’t a worst-case scenario; Black characterized Story’s injury as “not as bad” as one he suffered in late 2018 (more on which momentarily). Via MLB.com’s Manny Randhawa:

“Trev and I and [head trainer] Keith [Dugger] spoke this morning, and we decided the best thing for Trev was to go on the injured list,” Black said. “There’s still some residual soreness and general tightness around the joint of the elbow. He wasn’t gonna play today, probably wasn’t gonna play tomorrow, and then the off-day. And then the three of us also thought there’s gonna be a couple days to test this, to go out in Denver and throw and hit at some level of intensity as opposed to just picking up and playing.”

Read the rest of this entry »

As the calendar flips to June, it means just one thing to big league teams: there’s activity on the horizon. July means trade season, and June is the month to get ready for it. It can be a complicated process, but it starts with some old school front office work, as teams get in touch with each other to lay the groundwork for the insanity to come through what are commonly referred to as reach out calls.

Before such calls occur, teams prepare by assessing their 29 potential trade partners. For each team, needs and surpluses are identified. When I was with Houston, a group of people created matrices for each club, showing what those teams might need and which players might be available, as well as a snapshot of their payroll and any anticipated flexibility in that regard. For teams seen as buyers, did we have a player who fit their needs? For those likely to sell, did they have targets to help get us into the playoffs, or who could help us win a playoff series? For those on the bubble, both possible scenarios need to be prepared for.

The calls themselves are made by a variety of people, ranging from general managers to assistant GMs to other top lieutenants at the director level or higher. During my Astros tenure, assignments were based on relationships. I generally did somewhere between six and 10 of these calls because I knew the person on the other end of the phone best. Read the rest of this entry »

Javier Báez and Will Craig were the main protagonists in the tragicomedy that took place in Pittsburgh on Thursday. In a re-scripting of Merkle’s Boner, “El Mago” was cast as the hero, while the rookie first baseman co-starred as the unwitting villain. Given their respective roles, it’s understandable that they’ve received the lion’s share of attention for what transpired.

A supporting actor deserves his own acclaim. Largely overlooked — but no less important — were the actions of Willson Contreras. Had the Chicago catcher not made a mad dash toward home plate, panic and mayhem wouldn’t have entered the equation. Craig would have simply tagged Báez, relegating the latter’s amusing backpedal to a quickly-forgotten, footnote.

I brought that up to Pirates manager Derek Shelton on Friday.

“Yeah, I mean the one thing Contreras did was, he never gave up on the play,” responded Shelton. “He continued to run, and that was an important factor. He just continued to play, and finish the play. Unfortunately, it turned out against us.”

His thoughts on his ball club’s turning a routine play into Theatre of the Absurd?

“Move on from it,” said Shelton. “If we could all live our lives without making any mistakes, it would be really fun. But that doesn’t happen. Move on.”

Brandon Hyde and Will Venable have moved on from Chicago, where they
shared a clubhouse with Baez and Contreras as members of the Cubs coaching staff. I reached out to both for their perspectives on what will likely go down as the season’s craziest play. Read the rest of this entry »