Casey Mize plans to be a different pitcher in 2021. Not just in terms of results — the rookie right-hander had a 6.99 ERA and a 6.47 FIP in seven starts with the Detroit Tigers last year — but also with how he employs his arsenal. Not surprisingly, data will be playing a role. Mize has a history with pitch design that dates back to his days at Auburn, and those efforts have only increased in pro ball.

I asked the first-overall pick in the 2018 draft what technology has taught him about his pitches, and how it’s shaping his efforts to improve.

“It’s pretty much a horizontal profile,” Mize responded. “We’re starting to take the four-seamer up a little bit to add a little more vertical, because it played so well last year. My splitter is super vertical, and we’re trying to really maximize that, because my slider has more of a horizontal break.”

Mize acknowledged that his two-seamer profiles as horizontal as well, getting more arm-side run than depth. It’s a pitch he’s favored, but that’s one of the changes currently in the works. The 23-year-old hurler not only plans to elevate more four-seamers, he intends to up its overall usage. His two-seamer will be used primarily “to mask the splitter,” a pitch he likes to have diving below the zone. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the quirks and cancellation of a long-lost (and recently rediscovered) baseball successor to arcade hit NBA Jam called Power-Up Baseball, then discuss the Cubs signing Joc Pederson and the Cardinals bringing back Adam Wainwright and (probably) Yadier Molina, share a Stat Blast about where Wainwright and Molina rank among the most prolific pitcher-catcher combos of all time in terms of total starts, break down Nick Madrigal’s chances of achieving the “very reachable” (according to Madrigal) milestone of 3,000 hits, and celebrate Ken Griffey Jr.’s hiring as a senior advisor to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, then answer listener emails about whether contract incentives could encourage players to adopt data-driven approaches, how Mike Trout could tank his career WAR while continuing to play, and how to make baseball as bad as possible while preserving the core structure of the sport.

Audio intro: Echo & the Bunnymen, "Lost and Found"
Audio outro: Lindisfarne, "Together Forever"

Link to article about Power-Up Baseball
Link to video of Power-Up Baseball
Link to Google Doodle baseball game
Link to Dan Szymborski on the Wainwright signing
Link to Stat Blast data about batteries
Link to player turnover study
Link to Madrigal’s comments
Link to age-based baselines for 3000-hit club
Link to MLB.com story about Griffey
Link to list of Trout hypotheticals
Link to Meg on Trout hypotheticals
Link to Francoeur with big glove
Link to Francoeur with big glove again
Link to Craig Edwards’ farewell post
Link to FanGraphs job posting

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For years, rumors have connected Nolan Arenado and the St. Louis Cardinals. Some of it was wishcasting — Cardinals fans have spent the last 25 years expecting (and often seeing) trades for unhappy superstars, and Arenado sure seemed unhappy. Some of it was actual interest — the Cardinals have been in the superstar trade market and the Rockies have been in the move-Arenado market at various points. Today, it’s happening: per The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Arenado has been traded to the Cardinals for five players: Austin Gomber, Mateo Gil, Tony Locey, Elehuris Montero, and Jake Sommers.

The sticking point in any Arenado trade was always going to be capitalism. That’s painting with a broad brush, so let’s rephrase: there’s no doubt that Arenado is one of the best players in the game, but the vagaries of his contract and the math of surplus value combined to limit a potential return. Remember when Giancarlo Stanton got traded to the Yankees for essentially nothing? This would be like that, only potentially even worse.

Arenado is due $199 million over the next six years. That’s a large contract, as befits a player of his stature. If you value one win above replacement at around $8 million (my best estimate at present, though the error bars are huge given the pandemic), Arenado would need to produce roughly 25 WAR over the next six years to break even. We’ve got ZiPS forecasts for the next five of those years:

The numbers fall a little short, which is why finding a trading partner for Arenado has proved so elusive even as rumors of his availability persisted. That doesn’t even take into account a player option that would allow him to become a free agent after the 2021 season; it’s hard to trade a lot for a player who might not be on your team in a year’s time.

Those are the reasons that Arenado was a strange piece to fit in a trade. The counter? Arenado is an awesome player! He’s Nolan Arenado, for crying out loud. Over the last five years, he’s been the seventh-best position player in the game. At 29, he’s not a spring chicken anymore, but he’s still one of the best third basemen out there. Every single team in baseball would be improved by adding him, even if they had to shift a few pieces around to fit him in.

This weird dichotomy — excellent player, middling trade chip — explains the strangeness of this deal. Though the terms of the deal aren’t final, the Rockies are reportedly sending roughly $50 million to the Cardinals as part of the trade, and Arenado has agreed to defer some of his compensation to further sweeten the financial pot for St. Louis. The Cardinals gave Arenado an extra opt-out and an extra year reported at $15 million in exchange. There are all kinds of wild financial things going on in this deal, but let’s skip all that for now and focus on what St. Louis is getting on the field.

The highlight of this trade is pretty clear: the Cardinals just got a new best player on their team. The NL Central is up for grabs this year, and the four teams with a realistic shot at it have spent the offseason doing a whole lot of nothing. Adam Wainwright, who signed earlier this week, was the first player the Cardinals inked to a major league contract all offseason. Read the rest of this entry »

2:00	Jay Jaffe: Good afternoon and welcome to my first chat in this new time slot as well as my first one of 2021!

2:01	Jay Jaffe: While I wait for the queue to gain steam, some housekeeping… First, a fond farewell to colleague Craig Edwards, who’s making a leap to becoming an analyst for the Major League Baseball Players Association https://blogs.fangraphs.com/goodbye-and-thank-you/

2:04

Jay Jaffe: Second, I awoke to the pleasant surprise of having my Missed Time and the Hall of Fame series nominated for a SABR Analytics Research Conference Award. Colleagues Craig, Ben Clemens and Meg Rowley were also nominated in other categories, as were many friends and familiar names. Congrats to all of these fine nominees! Do read these pieces when you get a chance, and vote on them starting next week. https://sabr.org/latest/announcing-finalists-for-2021-sabr-analytics-c…

2:04	Jay Jaffe: Here’s a link to mine: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/missed-time-and-the-hall-of-fame-part-1, https://blogs.fangraphs.com/missed-time-and-the-hall-of-fame-part-2, https://blogs.fangraphs.com/missed-time-and-the-hall-of-fame-part-3

2:05	Jay Jaffe: Here’s my candidate-by-candidate roundup of this week’s Hall of Fame voting. https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/a-candidate-by-candidate-look-at-the-2… My 5-year outlook piece will run on Monday, and wow has it change even with nobody elected this year.

2:06	Jay Jaffe: Get your FanGraphs mug while you still can:  https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-new-fangraphs-mug-is-now-available…

Read the rest of this entry »

A familiar face is staying in St. Louis, as veteran starter Adam Wainwright, a Cardinal for 18 years now, came to an agreement Thursday on returning to the team for the 2021 season. The deal is believed to be worth $8 million — a bump in guaranteed money from his $5 million going into 2020 and $2 million in ’19.

This one-year deal isn’t, however, one of those last-gasp contracts agreed to with a franchise stalwart brought back in a wave of nostalgia. With Jack Flaherty slumping in 2020, Wainwright was the team’s most valuable pitcher and one of the primary reasons the Cardinals were able to sneak into the playoffs toward the back of the inflated 16-team field. In 10 starts, his 3.15 ERA was his best figure in a full season since 2014. Not only did he pitch well, but he also pitched deep into games, with his 6.6 innings per game being practically Old Hoss Radbourn-esque by modern standards. That was enough for third among qualifying pitchers behind only Kyle Hendricks and Trevor Bauer.

In a sense, 2020 was the completion of a comeback from Wainwright’s most recent season ruined by injury — a 2018 campaign in which he was shut down for most of the year due to a sore elbow. It was the fourth season he lost to injury as a pro, following 2015 (a ruptured Achilles tendon), ’11 (Tommy John surgery), and most of ’04 (a partial UCL tear).

You could make the argument, however, that Wainwright was never struggling as much as his ERA suggested. We use a stat like FIP because it’s less volatile than ERA and tends to have more predictive value. Since 2016, Wainwright’s FIPs have been in a fairly tight band, with less than a half-run per game separating the worst year (4.36) from the best (3.93). He didn’t actually lose any velocity at this time, either — Waino was never a traditional power pitcher — and people were a bit too quick to give the eulogy for his career.

Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 907

This week on FanGraphs Audio, we talk shop with a major league backstop, get into the nuts and bolts of prospect lists, and plug the latest FanGraphs merch.

• To begin the program, David Laurila is joined by Alex Avila. They discuss how the game has changed since Avila debuted in 2009, from the front office to behind the plate. They also talk about what it was like to catch Zack Greinke, and who of the many great pitchers Avila has played with has had the best “stuff.” Note: this interview was recorded before Avila agreed to a deal with the Washington Nationals. [2:25]
• Following that, Eric Longenhagen is joined by Keith Law of The Athletic, who recently released his own top 100 prospects list. Eric and Keith discuss what a challenge it has been to evaluate prospect talent with no minor league season, and how unreliable reports from the alternate training sites can be. They also share how they’ve changed their methods since doing their first prospect rankings and how they continue to evolve. [24:26]

Read the rest of this entry »

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The White Sox were one of the most exciting teams in baseball last year; a youthful, exuberant squad that broke up the Minnesota/Cleveland hegemony in the AL Central with a solid pitching staff and an unending barrage of crushed, smoked, and blistered baseballs. They led the league in position player WAR, and it was a team effort — seven different Chicago players had more than 100 plate appearances and an above-average batting line.

Notably absent from that group: Yoán Moncada, the one-time top prospect in baseball. He still put together a solid season — he hit .225/.320/.385, good for a 96 wRC+, and played stellar defense at third base — but after his breakout in 2019, 2020 can only be viewed as a disappointment.

I’ve got good news for people who are hoping Moncada turns things around: I know one of the main contributors to the problem (well, two, actually, but we’ll cover the second at the end of the article). I also have bad news for people who are hoping Moncada turns things around: it’s the same problem as always, and one that I hoped he had put in the past. Moncada simply doesn’t swing enough.

If this doesn’t sound like a common problem to you, well, yeah, it’s not. We as fans (and analysts) want batters to have a “good eye,” to avoid swings at devastating secondary pitches that they can’t do anything with. That’s the downfall of many a prospect, but Moncada has never had that problem.

Every year of his big league career, Moncada has chased fewer pitches than league average. This isn’t some trick of the count, either. Most batters chase more frequently when they’re behind in the count. Moncada chases less:

Read the rest of this entry »

The Texas Rangers brought a promising young hitter on board when they took Justin Foscue with the 14th-overall pick of last summer’s draft. A 21-year-old second baseman, Foscue put up a .958 OPS in his sophomore season at Mississippi State University, and he followed that up by slashing 321/.464/.509 in last year’s truncated collegiate campaign. Moreover, he displayed exemplary plate discipline and bat-to-ball skills. Foscue had 69 plate appearances with the Bulldogs in 2020, and drew 15 walks while striking out just three times.

What kind of hitter does the Huntsville, Alabama native view himself as, and how might that change as he advances through the professional ranks? Foscue addressed those questions, and much more, over the phone earlier this week.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe your hitting approach?

Justin Foscue: “That goes into what your strengths are as a hitter. For the past two years — my sophomore and junior years — I was really keyed in on advantage counts. On 1-0, 2-0, 3-1, I was sitting on a middle, middle-in, fastball, and if it was there I was trying to hit it out of the ballpark. If it wasn’t there, I wasn’t swinging. In those advantage counts, you’ve still got more pitches to play with.

“As a hitter, you have to be very disciplined with your approach, because if you don’t stick to it, you’re not going to be as successful as you could be. I kind of just try to hit mistakes. I’m also sitting fastball, because when guys are throwing 94 to 98 [mph], you’ve got to be keyed in on that or you’re going to miss it. And if he hangs a breaking ball, you have to be ready for that, too. One reason I’ve been so successful is that I haven’t missed too many pitches that I should be hitting.”

Laurila: What about when you’re not in an advantage count? Read the rest of this entry »

More than 10 years ago, my first piece of published baseball writing appeared on the Community Blog at FanGraphs. It was on Adam Wainwright’s curveball. About five years later, I joined FanGraphs as a part-time contributor. I read the offer email in line at Costco of all places. A few years after that, I joined the staff full-time. For nearly six years, I’ve written almost every day, doing work I love focused on a sport I care deeply about. It is a privilege to work at FanGraphs, and while I’m not tired of the work, I’m moving on. I’m leaving the site to join the Major League Baseball Players Association as their Senior Analyst for Economics and Collective Bargaining.

As I was writing this piece, I thought about the others staff members who have moved on and read through the many farewell posts to grace this site since I joined (remember correlation doesn’t equal causation). Managing editors and writers like Dave Cameron, Carson Cistulli, August Fagerstrom, Corinne Landrey, Kiley McDaniel, Chris Mitchell, and Jeff Sullivan went to work for teams. Writers like Mike Petriello, Travis Sawchik, Eno Sarris, and Kiley McDaniel (again) pursued other jobs in media. Some, like Paul Swydan, pursued other dreams. While every post represented the individual writing it, the goodbyes generally contained three themes: the people here, the work, and the opportunity.

David Appelman created a site for people who love baseball. FanGraphs helped me to appreciate baseball more than I did as a kid growing up on baseball cards,
Sports Illustrated, and a playing career that peaked at the age of nine. As a writer at FanGraphs, I’ve gotten the opportunity to work for and with some amazing people in a welcoming environment fostered by David and all those he’s hired over the years.

I’ve had three Managing Editors, all uniquely brilliant. Dave Cameron interviewed me, sent the email hiring me, and helped shape many of my early posts as I was getting my footing. Carson Cistulli spent considerable time editing my words, and to this day, uses the Socratic method if I ask him a question about baseball. Meg Rowley takes great care in her work and encouraged me to use my own voice. Many others have edited my words, their work is mostly unsung. Hopefully I’m not missing anyone, but I owe a debt to Robert Sanchez, Paul Swydan, Dylan Higgins, Brendan Gawlowski, Rachael McDaniel, and Jon Tayler, as well as Christina Kahrl at ESPN. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh, Meg Rowley, and FanGraphs author Ben Clemens break down the Marcus Semien, Andrelton Simmons, and Tommy La Stella signings, the Steven Matz trade, and Masahiro Tanaka’s decision to return to NPB’s Rakuten Eagles (with digressions about Japan’s tradition of awarding the uniform number 18 to aces and the greatness of Hiroki Kuroda) before explaining what the internet-driven inflation of GameStop stock has to do with the Mets, why Billy Beane isn’t leaving the A’s after all, and why teams are so intent on treating the competitive balance tax threshold as a salary cap. Then (57:32) they’re joined by Dr. Barton Smith, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Utah State University, to discuss how the Hawk-Eye component of MLB’s Statcast system is enabling new breakthroughs in pitch design, the concepts of seam-shifted wake and spin mirroring, which pitchers and teams are on the cutting edge, why some earlier analysts were wrong about pitching, whether hitters can counter the latest advances, what we still don’t understand about pitching, the increasing complexity of player evaluation, and how this all relates to foreign substances and the baseball’s surface.

Audio intro: The Shazam, "Squeeze the Day"
Audio interstitial: Buzzcocks, "Wake Up Call"
Audio outro: Heatmiser, "Wake"

Link to Ben Clemens on the Semien signing
Link to Dan Szymborski on the Simmons signing
Link to Tony Wolfe on the La Stella signing
Link to Tony on the Matz trade
Link to Brendan Gawlowski on the Tanaka signing
Link to Jim Allen on the Tanaka signing
Link to Rob Arthur on MLB FA going to Japan
Link to Slate’s GameStop stock explainer
Link to report about Steve Cohen’s losses
Link to report about Beane’s bid
Link to report about Oakland’s offer to Semien
Link to Andy McCullough on the CBT
Link to Marc Normandin on the CBT
Link to Hawk-Eye introduction
Link to Ben’s primer on the seam-shifted revolution
Link to Alan Nathan on late break
Link to Nathan on active spin
Link to Barton’s seam-shifted wake explainer
Link to Barton’s video about seam-shifted wake
Link to BP article on seam-shifted wake
Link to Driveline study on seam-shifted wake
Link to Tom Tango on seam-shifted wake
Link to Eno Sarris on seam-shifted wake
Link to Eno on spin mirroring
Link to Michael Augustine on spin mirroring
Link to Mike Petriello on spin direction
Link to Tango on spin direction
Link to Tango on gyro spin
Link to report about defamation lawsuit

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 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com

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