After MLB announced they were deadening the ball for 2021, we’ve spent a lot of time chasing the effects of those changes. Devan Fink has looked at what happened to the hits that used to be home runs and compared the total number of home runs per batted ball event in April. But while home run totals are comparatively lower over the short-term, it’s worth noting that there are still a historically high number of home runs in baseball. In fact, as of Wednesday morning, 3.48% of at-bats resulted in a home run, which is the fourth-highest rate in the majors since 1921:

It turns out that as a proportion of baseball’s offense, the home run is as prominent as it’s ever been. While 2019 is still the outlier for home runs as a proportion of total hits, with a whopping 16.2% of all hits being home runs, 2021 has the third highest proportion of teams offense coming in the form of a long ball. The explosion of home runs across the league in the last five seasons makes the steroid era pale in comparison:

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All-Star Game voting kicked off a few weeks ago (if you haven’t filled out a ballot, you can do so here), with the first round of totals announced earlier this week. There are a few players running away with their position, but most are up for grabs. Among those looking for more votes: Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Rangers shortstop, who’s unhappy with the results so far.

https://twitter.com/Isiahkf11/status/1404490572069588993

Kiner-Falefa has a case for taking the trip to Colorado, as he currently ranks fourth in both FanGraphs WAR (2.0) and bWAR (2.8) among shortstops in the AL, yet he did not crack the top 10 in the first vote update. Still, All-Star roster spot or no, this has been a wildly successful season for him, particularly in light of the defensive move he had to make.

Originally drafted as a shortstop, Kiner-Falefa played multiple infield positions as he worked his way through the minor leagues and also tried his hand at catching before going from third base to shortstop this season. As noted by Andrew Simon of MLB.com and our Jake Mailhot during the offseason, he’s now become the first player in the modern era to play at least 50 games at catcher, third base, and shortstop throughout his career.

It’s not only his versatility that is noteworthy. The reigning 2020 AL Gold Glove winner at third base, Kiner-Falefa’s skills haven’t diminished with his shift to shortstop; his defensive component of WAR (based on UZR) is the highest at that position in the AL. The table below shows a breakdown of FanGraphs’ measures of the primary components of WAR individually (hitting, fielding, and base running):

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In 2020, the San Diego Padres finally had their breakout season, going 37-23 in the pandemic-shortened sprint, good enough for the third-best record in baseball. A lot of players were responsible for getting them to where they ended up, but one of the best bits of news for the team was that Eric Hosmer was one of them. After signing a long-term contract prior to the 2018 season, Hosmer hit .259/.316/.412 in his first two seasons with the Friars, for a wRC+ of 93 and -0.5 combined WAR that placed him near the bottom of the ranks of baseball’s first baseman. But in 2020, with the highest average launch angle and lowest grounder percentage of his career, he hit .287/.333/.517, giving some hope that would turn things around.

If the first three months of 2021 are any indication, those hopes have mostly evaporated, ninth inning, game-tying home runs aside. Hosmer’s still hitting the ball very hard, but he’s largely back to his old, pre-2020 habits, hitting an inordinate number of pitches straight into the dirt, knocking out more ants than opposing pitchers. Since 2015, Statcast has kept track of what they call the “Sweet Spot” or pitches hit with a launch angle between eight and 32 degrees. Only twice has Hosmer been over 30%: in 2020 and his equally excellent 2017 season. For 2021, that mark has dropped to his lowest number yet, 22.3%. As a result, even with a better average exit velocity than last year, he’s missing 150 points of slugging percentage:

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Spencer Strider is a pitching nerd. He’s also a promising prospect putting up stellar numbers in his first professional season. Drafted in the fourth round last year out of Clemson University, the 22-year-old right-hander has a sparkling 1.50 ERA in six starts split between Low-A Augusta and High-A Rome. Moreover, he’s overpowering hitters to the tune of 14 hits allowed and 44 strikeouts in 24 innings.

Strider — No. 22 on our Atlanta Braves Top Prospects list — nerded out about his repertoire, and the evolution of his approach, prior to last night’s game.

———

David Laurila: Tell me about yourself as a pitcher. How do you get guys out?

Spencer Strider: “I believe in attacking the zone and putting the game in the hitters’ hands. Whether you’re throwing 50 [mph] and can’t throw a strike, or you’re throwing 101 and spotting up like Jacob deGrom, the hitters have to deal with whatever you give them. The statistics show that’s going to work in your favor the vast majority of the time.

“I’ve also come to learn a lot about my fastball. At the end of college we were able to get more more data and metrics on it, and I understood the concept of vertical break, how spin is helpful, and everything else that’s part of the vernacular now. I’ve focused on pitching to the top half of the zone, where it’s most difficult to hit a good rising fastball. Most of my attention over the last few months has been working on a breaking ball that complements that fastball use, something with more vertical depth at a high velocity.”

Laurila: For years, pitchers tended to tell me that they pitch to contact. Now it’s more common for them to say they’re trying to miss bats. Where do you stand?

Strider: “I’m definitely trying to miss bats. That’s the best outcome. I want to give myself the best chance of being successful, and if a guy swings-and-misses, I can’t be hurt by that. If I can pitch in a way that guarantees me more swings-and-misses, that helps remove the possibility of bad outcomes. Read the rest of this entry »

It feels like this season, umpires are under more scrutiny than ever before. Part of that might be because we’ve grown tired of the inconsistency that comes with human umpires, while another part could be access to more information, such as data on individual umpires’ accuracies.

On the sabermetric side, research on umpire performance has yielded mixed results. In April, our Ben Clemens examined whether the strike zone had changed and found no difference compared to previous seasons (though he noted that might not be very satisfying to frustrated fans). Recently, over at Baseball Prospectus, Rob Arthur concluded that the issue wasn’t the rate of wrong calls, but rather their magnitude. In other words, umpires are messing up in high-leverage situations. But is this because of umpires succumbing to pressure? Or just variance? The “why” component still eludes us.

In the midst of all the umpire-related hoopla, though, it seems like we’ve overlooked the importance of pitch framing. Until robot umpires come along, the art of presenting would-be balls as strikes (and making sure strikes don’t turn into balls) will remain relevant. This season’s umpires have been inconsistent, sure, but it’s undeniable that a certain amount of agency belongs to skillful catchers. Read the rest of this entry »

Episode 927

On this week’s show, we get to hear true tales from the minor league experience. But first, we must address the sticky elephant in the room.

• We begin with Eric Longenhagen and Ben Clemens catching up on baseball happenings and with each other. What should the struggling Twins and D-backs do with the rest of their seasons, and why are balks still a complete mystery? Eric also provides an update on prospect lists and the draft before he and Ben get into the nuances of the foreign substances controversy and how we cover it. [3:03]
• After that, David Laurila is joined by Zack Bayrouty, broadcaster for the Reno Aces, and Alex Cohen, voice of the Iowa Cubs, to check in on minor league life. Zack shares the story of the 21-16 game he recently survived calling, while Alex tells us about the time he was on House Hunters. The trio also discusses the lineage of broadcasters that goes through Pawtucket before diving into gritty stories from the road, including sketchy hotels, bus breakdowns, and a bath gone very awry. [44:20]

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Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Oakland Athletics. 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.

It’s the only thing anyone in baseball is talking about, and we aren’t immune, with another sticky edition of Chin Music. Coming out from the shadows, former Orioles, Mets and Yankees beat writer and current deputy editor at The Athletic Marc Carig joins me for nearly two and a half hours of fun. Marc and I talk about the controversy de jour and try to figure out why baseball has the most miserable fan base in sports before being joined by special guest Jerry Blevins. The ex-big leaguer discusses his personal experience with foreign substances and how this could all be solved with a better baseball. Then it’s your emails, a long discussion on the future of baseball media, a Russian film and associated Hollywood remake, and even some gardening talk.

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

Music by Drunken Logic.

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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Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley follow up on previous discussions about player predictions and game postponements, answer listener emails about a sticky-stuff pitcher protest, the talent level in the College World Series, the wave as a player-distraction device, a six-year-old who roots for walks, and when the Astros will stop being booed (with an aside about foreign-substance use and the Hall of Fame), then unload a Stat Blast about the Twins and teams with the most and least lineup turnover after Opening Day, before closing with a “Meet a Major Leaguer” segment on Mariners outfielder Dillon Thomas and Monarchs two-way great Bullet Rogan.

Audio intro: Franz Ferdinand, "Bullet"
Audio outro: Franz Ferdinand, "Walk Away"

Link to article about Puckett’s called shot
Link to article about Nationals delay
Link to Jeff Passan on sticky stuff
Link to Ben on mid-PA pitching changes
Link to Ben on college player development
Link to info on distracting free-throw shooters
Link to post about swinging against deGrom
Link to tweet about swinging against deGrom
Link to story on the Astros being booed in Boston
Link to Baseball Prospectus IL Ledger
Link to Stat Blast data
Link to SABR on the Cobb replacement game
Link to news segment about Thomas
Link to video of Burrows throwing (up)
Link to Baseball-Reference Negro Leagues hub
Link to Bullet Rogan’s B-Ref page
Link to SABR on Rogan’s 1921 game
Link to MLB.com on Negro Leagues two-way stars
Link to THT on Negro Leagues two-way stars

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