Last week, MLB announced that it would begin enforcing one of its rules. Following last week’s owner’s meetings, ESPN’s Buster Olney reported that the league instructed umpires to begin checking pitchers and their equipment for foreign substances. While pitchers have long lathered up the ball with pine tar or sunscreen, the concoctions applied to baseballs have become more sophisticated recently, and they appear to have had a role in dampening offense league wide.

Cracking down on foreign substances is a defensible choice on the league’s part. In 2021, we’ve seen record-breaking strikeout totals and record-low batting averages, a continuation of trends that had already spawned discussions on how to get the ball in play more often. There’s no shortage of ideas on how to best do that and controlling the substances pitchers can use to doctor the baseball has a couple of advantages.

The first is that it’s likely to yield at least a modest result. In recent years, we’ve learned how different substances can affect a ball’s spin rate, and thus it’s trajectory. We’ve also seen how increased spin rates lead to nastier pitches and thus more strikeouts. With the right recipe, a pitcher can enhance his spin rate significantly, and certain spin-gainers have been rewarded handsomely for doing so. While nobody is arguing that a few hundred extra revolutions per minute is the difference between the All-Star game and the scrap heap, the consensus within the league is that the extra spin has given pitchers a leg up against the hitters. Removing that advantage could help restore balance to the sport.

The second benefit is that there’s historical precedent for something like this, and that’s a boon for a tradition-minded sport like baseball. In 1920, MLB banned the spitball for similar reasons. Nobody was talking about spin rates back then, but pitchers had figured out that a good hock of phlegm could make a ball dip unpredictably, and the corresponding decrease in spin was giving batters fits. As was the case 100 years ago, a mandate to keep the ball clean is an easy enough policy for all parties to understand: everyone should be on the same page about the league’s directive here. Read the rest of this entry »

When Kevin Goldstein previewed each NL team’s trade deadline reach-out calls earlier this week, he listed a smorgasbord of available Marlins. Corey Dickerson, Jesús Aguilar, Miguel Rojas, Starling Marte; if you’re looking for a hitter, the Fish have you covered. Want to shore up your pitching and catching? Sandy León, Yimi García, and Ross Detwiler say hello.

If I were calling the Marlins, though, I’d be tempted to skip that extensive selection and order off-menu, as you might with Wondee Siam or, if you’re less of a cheap New York dining hipster, In-N-Out Burger’s well-known but unlisted selections. Forget those brand name offerings; I’d be interested in finding out what it costs to get John Curtiss.

Curtiss hasn’t been a Marlin for life. He’s not an under-appreciated gem they’ve nurtured through their farm system. In fact, he started in the Twins system and excelled in the minors before scuffling (15 IP, 7.20 ERA) in two brief call-ups. The Twins shipped him to the Angels to ease a roster crunch, the Angels granted him free agency, and a brief stop with the Phillies ended with 12 poor minor league innings and a release.

That’s not quite a fairy tale story, but then things got interesting: the Rays, who know a thing or two about finding undervalued relievers, entered the picture. He carved through the AL East in 2020, but got shelled in the postseason. With the Rays facing a 40-man roster crunch (water is wet, the sky is blue, and the Rays have too many viable major leaguers), they traded him to the Marlins in exchange for Evan Edwards, a fourth-round pick in 2019.

The general story — the Rays turn a pitcher they found on the ground into a valuable draft pick — favors Tampa Bay, but in this case, Curtiss looks like a diamond in the rough. He’s always had some juice — he throws a mid-90s four-seamer and an upper-80’s slider, and both pitches miss their fair share of bats. He put up 30% strikeout rates nearly every year in the minors, and that’s mostly continued in the bigs. Read the rest of this entry »

Clayton Beeter looks at pitching with a scientific bent. He also blows away hitters with a fastball-curveball combo that has elicited comparisons to a healthy Nick Anderson. Our own Eric Longenhagen made that very comp when he bullishly ranked the 22-year-old right-hander seventh on our Los Angeles Dodgers Top Prospect list. Baseball America slotted Beeter — the 66th-overall pick in last year’s draft — 21st on their own list.

Red-shirted his freshman year at Texas Tech University after undergoing Tommy John surgery during his first semester, Beeter returned to action as a closer, then moved into the Red Raiders starting rotation in his draft year. His future role yet to be determined, he’s currently taking the mound with the High-A Great Lakes Loons.

Beeter discussed his arsenal, and his approach to pitching, this past Saturday.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with how you self-identify as a pitcher. Give me a scouting report on yourself.

Clayton Beeter: “I would say I’ve got an overpowering fastball paired with an overpowering curveball. I can also mix in a changeup if I need to.”

Laurila: You consider yourself a power pitcher…

Beeter: “Yeah. For sure.”

Laurila: Has that always been the case?

Beeter: “I actually didn’t pitch until my last two years of high school. I was a shortstop and then they just kind of threw me on the mound because I had a good arm. I realized I could throw pretty hard for that age, but then I went to college to pitch and my velo kept increasing. So I guess I became that — I became a power pitcher — more so after Tommy John.” Read the rest of this entry »

Major League Baseball is preparing to crack down on pitchers’ use of foreign substances, which could have important ramifications for how the game is played not just the rest of this season, but for a long time to come. Such a remarkable midseason change in enforcement — one report from ESPN’s Buster Olney suggested that umpires might randomly check baseballs 8–10 times per game — could alter league-wide offense, perhaps to a rather large degree depending on the number of pitchers who doctor the baseball.

Two things seems fairly certain, though. First, foreign substances increase spin rates; second, spin rates significantly impact pitcher performance. An experiment run by Travis Sawchik at theScore demonstrated that certain substances, like Spider Tack, could add as much as 500 rpms to a fastball. One college pitcher, Spencer Curran from Seton Hall University, saw the baseline rpm on his fastball go from 2,096 without any substances to 2,516 with Spider Tack and without any velocity increase — a jump that likely cannot happen naturally.

“It’s probably pretty hard to change that [fastball spin] ratio for an individual,” University of Illinois physics professor Alan Nathan told Sawchik at FiveThirtyEight. “I can see that you could do it for a curveball because a curveball involves some technique, whereas a fastball is pure power. There is no finesse.”

In a comprehensive story published by Stephanie Apstein and Alex Prewitt at Sports Illustrated, one recently retired pitcher estimated that 80% to 90% of pitchers currently use some form of foreign substances. But even with pervasive use, not all sticky stuff has the same impact. As Sawchik showed in his experiment, some substances — like a sunscreen mix he used — may actually decrease spin rates. Some of it may depend on how much time each pitcher has had to experiment in front of a Rapsodo, trying different concoctions until something works to their liking.

In both articles, the authors highlighted some basic stats to show how spin rate impacts batter performance. Sawchik noted that batters are hitting .264 on four-seam fastballs that range from 2,250–2,350 rpms, but just .217 on those above 2,500. That’s a sizable gap, and numbers like that have definitely caught MLB’s attention. As one executive told SI, though MLB is considering many changes to increase offense, he believes that better enforcement of the foreign substances rule already on the books — Rule 6.02(c) — would go a long way.

“I think people would be absolutely shocked if they actually enforced this, how much you’ll start to normalize things without rule changes,” the executive said.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is Part Two of the May edition of my monthly column in which I recap what’s been going on in the Korean Baseball Organization on both a league- and team-wide scale. In case you missed it, Part One discussed league-wide trends, then covered the SSG Landers, LG Twins, Samsung Lions, and NC Dinos. Today’s post will cover the remaining six teams. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them as comments or reach out to me via Twitter. Without further ado, let’s talk some KBO!

Team Notes

KT Wiz

If there was any doubt regarding Baek-ho Kang 강백호’s superstar status, this season has blown it away. Through 52 games, the young first baseman is batting over .400. He’s second in the league in wRC+ and first in Batting WAR. What’s his secret? Kang doesn’t have overwhelming raw power – our Eric Longenhagen assigned it a 55 grade – but he’s consistent enough with what he has to sustain a high BABIP. He’s also extremely picky during at-bats, fouling and taking unfavorable pitches before pouncing on one he likes. Here’s a graphical representation of his swing decisions last season (courtesy of Statiz):

That’s some excellent selective aggression. Kang’s swing rates are in the 80s on in-zone pitches, but they drop dramatically on anything outside. He’s seeing and hitting the ball so well that in one game, the Lotte Giants introduced an extreme infield shift covering Kang’s pull-side. And what does he do? Why, he executes two perfect bunts the other way for hits, of course. Later that game, he deposited an 88 mph fastball into right field to go 3-for-5 overall. At this point, Kang’s defense is his only weakness. I think he ends up as a DH if he decides to tackle major league baseball, but he’ll mash enough to be at least a solid regular. Read the rest of this entry »

Building off yesterday’s National League scripts for teams’ reach-out calls, today I move on to the American League.

American League East

Tampa Bay Rays

Obviously, we don’t have a ton of room to add in terms of budget. There are some right-handed hitting first baseman out there who could be good fits for us without adding too much to our payroll. We love what Kevin Kiermaier brings to the clubhouse and with his glove, but we could use a center field upgrade. As usual, we have a bunch of no-name relievers pitching like stars, and there are some ‘pen arms out there who check our data boxes who might be of interest, but only if the price is right.

Boston Red Sox

We’re surprised we’re here, too, but we’re also convinced this team is good, so we’re looking to bolster the roster. Our biggest issue is first base, as we can’t afford to keep throwing Bobby Dalbec out there and clearly need an upgrade. With Franchy Cordero cratering and Enrique Hernández not hitting, an outfield piece that allowed us to move Hernández back to more of a utility role, where we think he’d be more productive, would interest us. We’re quite happy with our pitching, but like the rest of the world, we have some bullpen targets to improve upon our depth there. Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler O’Neill’s batting line doesn’t make any sense. I don’t mean that in a good or bad way, though I’m sure a line like his will elicit bad feelings in plenty of people. That line, just for the record, is .278/.309/.611, with a 2.6% walk rate and 34.2% strikeout rate. As you might surmise from the silly slugging percentage, he’s clubbed 13 home runs already this season, which would put him on pace for 52 in 600 plate appearances. True outcomes? Tyler O’Neill is a champion of truth.

Strikeouts and home runs have always gone together. Babe Ruth is the all-time true-outcome leader when compared to his era. But O’Neill kicks it into overdrive. Most sluggers use their prodigious power to get on base; they draw walks because pitchers are afraid to face them in the strike zone. O’Neill, again, is walking 2.6% of the time. That would be the worst rate in baseball if he qualified for the batting title, tied with Salvador Perez.

Nothing I’m saying here is particularly new. O’Neill’s 34.2% strikeout rate is virtually identical to his career mark. His 37.1% home run per fly ball rate will surely come down, but his career mark is 23.3%. His maximum exit velocity on the year is exactly identical to his previous career mark. Why write about him now? Read the rest of this entry »

I am an absolute sucker for baseball history. Hours upon hours have been lost to deep dives into the SABR Bio Project or the spiraling wormhole that is Wikipedia. It’s amazing what little nuggets of strange-but-true ephemera you can unearth as you sink into over a hundred years of baseball. If you’ve watched Ken Burns: Baseball, you’ll know that even 10 episodes is not enough time to cover the breadth of what the sport is and what it has achieved.

Because the game’s history is so rich and expansive, there’s a habit, as with all history, to pick and choose the aspects of the historical record that best fit with the present tone. We may have even been convinced it started with Abner Doubleday, as popular myth has long-contended. But as it turns out not even Doubleday himself ever made any such claim, and in digging into the roots of where baseball really began, I found that the answer might fall much further north than previously believed, with a game in Ontario, Canada, that may just be the first game of baseball ever played in North America.

If you look at the origins of baseball, it is generally believed that the first game took place in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. An account from Abner Graves was the source for this claim, but there are a lot of issues when you approach it with any real historical method. For one, Abner Doubleday never visited Cooperstown and definitely did not do so in 1839, when he was attending West Point. Add to this that Abner Graves was only five years old in 1839, and that in his later years he was confined to a ward for the criminally insane after murdering his wife, and you might begin to understand why we perhaps should not take his version of history at face value.

As I researched Canadian baseball’s history for another piece, I came across a mention of a story about a game very similar to baseball, played in Beachville, Ontario. In an 1886 letter, Dr. Adam Enoch Ford recounted attending an event that “closely resembled our present national game” a full year before Doubleday was credited with inventing it. The game in question took place on June 4, 1838, and as you’ll see from the excerpts that follow, it may not be exactly baseball as we know it, but it’s definitely more like it than a game that never actually happened in Cooperstown in 1839. Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Miller doesn’t lack for confidence, and for good reason. Ranked No. 8 on our Los Angeles Dodgers Top Prospects list, the 22-year-old right-hander pairs electric stuff with a first-round pedigree. Selected 29th overall last year out of the University of Louisville, Miller excelled against SEC competition, and he’s gotten off to an excellent start in pro ball. Pitching for the High-A Great Lakes Loons, he’s allowed just eight hits and two runs, with 17 strikeouts, in five starts comprising 14.1 innings.

Miller talked about his growth as a pitcher, and the power arsenal he takes to the mound, following his last outing.

———

David Laurila: How would you describe yourself as a pitcher?

Bobby Miller: “I’d like to say I’m the most confident person out there. Other than that, I have velocity and a lot of other pitches. I’m four-seam, two-seam, changeup, slider, curveball. I’m also working on a different slider right now. But yeah, I’m always going to bring the energy out there. No doubt about that. I think that’s a good way to describe me.”

Laurila: Is being “the most confident guy out there” ever a negative?

Miller: “No, I don’t think so. Not at all. I think it can help pick the rest of our team up, as well. Depending on how the game is going… maybe it’s a super-close game. I like to show how confident I am.”

Laurila: How about when you’re getting hit? Are you going to keep challenging hitters?

Miller: “I’m always going to keep challenging hitters, no matter how good or bad I’m doing. Whatever is working for me best that day, I’m going to stick with that until they prove they can do something with it. If they do, then I start going to my other stuff.”

Laurila: Do you identify as a power-pitcher? Read the rest of this entry »